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Cen tered along busy Green wood Av e nue, Tulsa’s Af ri can-American com mer cial dis trict was a bona fide Amer i can suc cess story.Home to literally doz ens of black-owned and op er ated busi nesses in the days be fore the riot, “Deep Greenwood” could also layclaim to a public li brary, a postal sub sta tion, a Y. M. C. A. branch, and the of fices of two newspapers (Cour tesy Don Ross).as well as the Economy Drug Company, Wil- For a community of its size, the Greenwoodliam Anderson’s jewelry store, Henry Lilly’s business district could boast of a number of im-upholstery shop, and A.S. Newkirk’s photog- pressive commercial structures. John and Loularaphy studio. A suit of clothes purchased at Williams, who owned the three-story WilliamsElliott & Hooker’s clothing emporium at 124 Building at the northwest corner of GreenwoodN. Greenwood, could be fitted across the street Avenue and Archer Street, also operated theat H.L. Byars’ tailor shop at 105 N. Green - seven-hundred-fifty seat Dreamland Theater,wood, and then cleaned around the corner at that offered live musical and theatrical revues asHope Watson’s cleaners at 322 E. Archer. well as silent movies accompanied by a piano There were plenty of places to eat including player. Across the street from the Dreamlandlate night sandwich shops and barbecue joints sat the white-owned Dixie Theater with seatingto Doc’s Beanery and Hamburger Kelly’s for one-thousand, which made it the secondplace. Lilly Johnson’s Liberty Cafe, recalled largest theater in town. In nearby buildings wereMabel Little, who owned a beauty shop in the of fices of nearly all of Tulsa’s black law yers,Greenwood at the time of the riot, served realtors, and other professionals. Most impres-home-cooked meals at all hours, while at the sively, there were fifteen African Americannearby Little Cafe, “people lined up waiting physicians in Tulsa at the time of the riot, in -for their specialty — chicken or smothered cluding Dr. A.C. Jackson, who had been de-steak with rice and brown gravy.” A scribed by one of the Mayo brothers as theCoca-Cola, a sarsaparilla, or a soda could be “most able Negro surgeon in America”.11bought at Rolly and Ada Huff’s confectionery The overall intellectual life of Greenwoodon Archer between Detroit and Cincinnati. Al-though both the nation and Oklahoma were was, for a community of its size, quite striking.nominally dry, there were also places where a There was not one black newspaper but two - theman or a woman could purchase a shot of Tulsa Star and the Oklahoma Sun. Africanbootleg whiskey or a milky-colored glass of Americans were discouraged from utilizing theChoctaw beer.10 new Carnegie library downtown, but a smaller, all-black branch library had been opened on Ar- 41

cher Street. Nationally recognized African a tan gi ble sym bol, of the fact that Af ri can Amer-American lead ers, such as W.E.B. DuBois, had icans had also shared, to some degree, inlectured in Tulsa before the riot. Moreover, Tulsa’s great economic boom. While modest inGreenwood was also home to a local business comparison with the fortunes being amassed byleague, various fraternal orders, a Y.M.C.A. the city’s white millionaires, Greenwood wasbranch, and a number of women’s clubs, the home to some highly successful business entre- pre neurs. O.W. Gur ley, a black real es tate de vel-last of which were often led by the more than oper and the owner of the Gurley Hotel,thirty teachers who taught in the city’s sepa- reportedly suffered some $65,000 in losses dur-rate — and, as far as facilities were concerned, ing the riot. Even more impressive was the busi-decidedly unequal — African American pub- ness resume of J.B. Stradford, whose assetslic schools. were said to be nearly twice as large. Stradford, a highly successful owner of rental property, The political issues of the day also attracted had borrowed $20,000 in order to construct hisconsiderable interest.The Tulsa Star, in partic- own hotel. Opened on June 1, 1918, theular, not only provided extensive coverage of Stradford Hotel, a modern fifty-four roomnational, state, and local political campaigns structure, instantly became not only one of theand election results, but also devoted signifi- true jewels of Greenwood Av e nue, but was alsocant column space for recording the activities one of the largest black-owned businesses inof the local all-black Democratic and Republi- Oklahoma.14can clubs. Moreover, the Star also paid atten-tion to a number of quasi-political movements Most of the black-owned businesses in Tulsaas well, including Marcus Garvey’s Universal were, of course, much more modest affairs.Negro Improvement Association, differentback-to-Africa movements, and various na- One of the Mann Grocery stores of the Greenwood districttionalist organizations. One such group, the (Courtesy Greenwood CulturalCenter).African Blood Brotherhood, later claimed tohave had a chapter in Greenwood prior to the Scattered about the district were numerousriot.12 small stores, from two-seater barber shops to family-run grocery stores, that helped to make When it came to religious activity, however, pre-riot Green wood, on a per ca pita ba sis, one ofthere was no ques tion at all where Tulsa’s Af ri- the most business-ladenAfricanAmericancom-can American com mu nity stood. Church mem- munities in the country. Grit, hard work, and de- termination were the main reasons for thisbership in Tulsa ran high. On a per capita basis, success, as were the entrepreneurial skills thatthere were more churches in black Tulsa than were imported to Tulsa from smaller communi-there were in the city’s white community as ties across Oklahoma.well as a number of Bible study groups, Chris-tian youth organizations, and chapters of na- There were other reasons as well. Tulsa’stional religious societies. All told, there were booming economy was a major factor, as wasmore than a dozen African American churchesin Tulsa at the time of the riot, including FirstBaptist, Vernon A.M.E., Brown’s Chapel,Morning Star, Bethel Seventh Day Adventist,and Par a dise Bap tist, as well as Church of God,Nazarene, and Church of God in Christ congre-gations. Most impressive from an architecturalstandpoint, perhaps, was the beautiful, brandnew home of Mount Zion Baptist Church,which was dedicated on April 10, 1921 — lessthan eight weeks before the riot.13 The new Mount Zion Baptist Church build-ing (constructed of brick and mortar) also was 42

the fact that, on the whole, Greenwood was not chased touring cars, and in general sought toonly the place where black Tulsans chose to mimic the lifestyles of their more establishedshop, but was also practically the only place counterparts back East, there was a correspond-that they could. Hemmed in by the city’s resi- ing boom in the market for domestic help. Suchdential segregation ordinance, African Ameri- positionswere oftenopentoAfricanAmericanscans were generally barred from patronizing as well as whites, and by early 1921, upward ofwhite-owned stores downtown — or ran the two-hundred black Tulsans were re sid ing in oth-risk of insult, or worse, if they tried. While erwise all-white neighborhoods, especially onmany black Tulsans made a consciousdecision the city’s ever growing south side. Working asto patronize African American merchants, the maids, cooks, butlers, and chauffeurs, they livedfact of the matter was that they had few others in servant’s quarters that, more often than not,places to go.15 were attached to garages located at the rear of their employer’s property. There was no dearth of African Americanconsumers. Despite the growing fame of its For the men and women who lived andcommercial district, the vast majority of worked in these positions, a visit to GreenwoodGreenwood’s adults were neither businessmen — be it to attend Sunday services, or simply tonor businesswomen, but worked long hours, visit with family and friends — was often theunder trying conditions, for white employers. highlight of the week. Whether they caught aLargely barred from employment in both the picture show at the Dreamland or the Dixie, oroil in dus try and from most of Tulsa’s man u fac- merely window-shopped along Greenwood Av-turing fa cil i ties, these men and women toiled at enue, they, too, could take both pride and own-difficult, often dirty, and generally menial jobs ership in what lay before them.18 Its poverty and— the kinds that most whites considered be- lack of services notwithstanding, there was noneath them—as janitors and ditch-diggers, question that Greenwood was an American suc-dishwashers and maids, porters and day labor- cess story.ers, domestics and service workers. Unsungand largely forgotten, it was, nevertheless, Yet, despite its handsome business districttheir paychecks that built Greenwood, and and its brand-new brick church, and thetheir hard work that helped to build Tulsa.16 rags-to-riches careers of some of its leading citi- zens, neither Greenwood’s present, nor its fu- Equally forgotten perhaps, are the housing ture, was by any means secure. By the spring ofconditions that these men and women returned 1921, trouble — real trouble — had been brew-to at the end of the day. Although Greenwood ing in Tulsa for some time. When it came to is-contained some beautiful, modern homes — sues of race — not just in Tulsa or in Oklahoma,par tic u larly those of the doc tors, busi ness own- but all across American — the problems weren’ters, and ed u ca tors who lived in the fash ion able simply brewing. They had, in fact, already ar-500 block of North Detroit Avenue along the rived.shoulder of Standpipe Hill — most AfricanAmericans in pre-riot Tulsa lived in far more In the long and often painful history of racemeager circumstances. According to a study relations in the United States, few periods wereconducted by the American Association of So- as turbulent as the years surrounding World Warcial Workers of living conditions in black I, when the country exploded into an era of al-Tulsa shortly before the riot, some “95 percent most unprecedented racial strife. In the yearof the Negro residents in the black belt lived in 1919 alone, more than two dozen different racepoorly constructed frame houses, without con- riots broke out in cities and towns across the na-veniences, and on streets which were unpaved tion. Unlike the racial dis tur bances of the 1960sand on which the drain age was all sur face.”17 and the 1990s, these riots were characterized by the specter of white mobs invading African Not all black Tulsans, however, lived in American neighborhoods, where they attackedGreenwood. As the city boomed and the black men and women and, in some cases, setnewly-minted oil tycoons built mansions, pur- their homes and businesses on fire.19 43

These riots were set off in different ways. In Troops were called in to quell the disturbance,Chicago, long-simmering tensions between but the sol diers — all of whom were white — in-blacks and whites over housing, recreation, stead in vaded the Af ri can Amer i can dis trict andand jobs were ignited one Sunday afternoon in “shot it up.” In Omaha, Nebraska, a similar situ-late July 1919. A group of teenaged African ation rapidly developed after William Brown,American boys, hoping to find some relief who was black, was arrested for allegedly as- saulting a young white girl. A mob of angryfrom the rising temperatures, climbed aboard a whites then stormed the courthouse wherehomemade raft out on Lake Michigan. They Brown was being held, shot him, hung himended up drifting opposite an all-white beach. from a nearby lamppost, and then mutilated hisThe white beach-goers, meanwhile, who were body beyond recognition.22already angered by an attempt by a group ofblack men and women to utilize that beach ear- The savage attack on William Brown brutallylier that day, began hurling stones at the demonstrated just how pas sion ately many whiteyouths, killing one, and setting off nearly two Americans felt about situations involving inter-weeks of racial terror. In the end, more than racial sexual relations. While this subject —thirty-eight people — both black and white — which has a long and complicated history in thewere killed in Chicago, and scores and scores United States — cannot be dealt with in a de-of homes were burned to the ground.20 tailed fashion here, suffice it to say that during the post-World War I era, and for many years A race riot in Washington, D.C., whichbroke out earlier that summer, followed a more African Amer i cans ral lied sol idly be hind the na tion’s war ef forttyp i cal pat tern. Af ter ru mors had been cir cu lat- during World War I, and thousands of black soldiers served ining for weeks that rapists were on the loose, a France. Upon their re turn to the U. S., how ever, many black vetswhite woman claimed that she had been sexu- found that the democracy that they had fought to protect over-ally assaulted by two young African American seas was often unavailable to them back home (Courtesymen. Although she later admitted that her orig- Oklahoma Historical Society).i nal story was false, the white press built up theincident, and racial tensions rose. Then, onJuly 19, the Washington Post published yet an-other story of an alleged assault —“NEGROES ATTACK GIRL” ran the head-line, “WHITE MEN VAINLY PURSUE.” Thenext day, the nation’s capital erupted into ra-cial violence, as groups of white soldiers, sail-ors, and Marines began to “molest any blackperson in sight, hauling them off of streetcarsand out of restaurants, chasing them up alleys,and beating them mercilessly on street cor-ners.” At least six people were killed and morethan a hundred were injured. After whitesthreatened to set fire to African Americanneighborhoods, order was finally restoredwhen the secretary of war called out sometwo-thousand federal troops to patrol thestreets.21 Alleged sexual assaults played a role in twoother race riots that broke out that year. InKnoxville, Tennessee, a white mob gatheredoutside the jail where a black male was beingheld for supposedly attacking a white female. 44

before and after, perhaps no crime was viewed rants and other public establishments, while inas more egregious by many whites than the the classrooms of Ivy League colleges and uni-rape, or attempted rape, of a white woman by a versities, a new scientific racism — which heldblack male.23 that whites from northern Europe were innately superior to all other hu man groups — was all the Riots, however, were not the only form of rage. In Washington, the administration of Pres-extralegal violence faced by African Ameri-cans during the World War I era. In 1919 ident Woodrow Wilson proposed dozens ofalone, more than seventy-five blacks were laws which mandated discriminatory treatmentlynched by white mobs — including more than against African Americans. And across thea dozen black soldiers, some of whom were country, racist white politicians constantlymurdered while still in uniform. Moreover, preyed upon racial fear and hostility.26 Theymany of the so-called lynchings were growing soon had a new ally.ever more barbaric. During the first year fol-lowing the war, eleven African Americans Re-established in Atlanta in 1915, thewere burned — alive — at the stake by white so-called second Ku Klux Klan had adoptedmobs.24 both the name and familiar hooded robes of its nineteenth century predecessor, but in many Across the nation, blacks bitterly resisted ways was a brand new organization. Launchedthese at tacks, which were of ten made worse by the same year that D.W. Griffith’s anti-blackthe fact that in many instances, local police au- blockbuster, The Birth of a Nation, was releasedthorities were unable or unwilling to disperse in movie theaters nationwide, Klan organizersthe white mobs. As the violencecontinued, and fanned out across the country, establishingthe death count rose, more and more African powerful state organizations not only in theAmerican leaders came to the conclusion that South, but also in places like New Jersey, Indi-nothing less than the very future of black men ana, and Oregon. While African Americansand women in America hung in the balance. were often the recipients of the political intimi- dation, beatings, and other forms of violence World War I had done much to clarify their meted out by klansmen, they were not the onlythinking. In the name of democracy, African targets of the new reign of terror. Klan membersAmericans had solidly supported the war ef- also regularly attacked Jews, Catholics, Japa-fort. Black sol diers — who were placed in seg- nese Americans, and immigrants from southernregated units — had fought gal lantly in France,winning the respect not only of Allied com- Europe, as well as suspected bootleggers, adul-manders, but also of their Germanfoes.Having terers, and other alleged criminals.27risked their lives and shed their blood in Eu-rope, many black veterans felt even more Although still a young state, many of thesestrongly that not only was it time that democ- national trends were well-represented inracy was practiced back home, but that it was a Oklahoma. Like their counterparts elsewhere,long time overdue.25 black Oklahomans had rallied strongly behind the war effort, purchasing Liberty Bonds, hold- They returned home to a nation not only ing patriotic rallies and taking part in homeplagued by race riots and lynchings, but also front conservation efforts. More than a few Afri-by a poisonous racial climate that, in many can American men from Oklahoma — includ-ways, was only grow ing worse. The very same ing a large number of Tulsans — had enlisted inyears that saw the emergence of the United the army. Some, like legendary Booker T.States as a major world power also witnessed,back home, the rise of some aggressive and in- Washington High School football coach Sey-sidious new forms of white racism. mour Williams, had fought in France.28 Moreover, the new racial climate was far But when Oklahoma’s black World War Ifrom limited to the South. Less than fifty years veterans finally returned to civilian life, they,after the Civil War, a number of northern cities too, came home to a state where, sadly enough,began to bar African Americans from restau- anti-black sentiments were alive and well. In 1911, the Oklahoma state legislature passed the 45

The Ku Klux Klan gripped Oklahoma in the 1920s, this cer e mony was in Lone Grove (Cour tesy West ernHistoryCollection,University of Oklahoma Libraries).infamous “Grandfather Clause”, which effec- twenty-three black Oklahomans — includingtively ended voting by African Americans two women — were lynched by whites in morestatewide. While the law was ruled unconstitu- than a dozen different Oklahoma communities,tional by a unanimous vote by the U.S. Su - including Anadarko, Ardmore, Eufaula,preme Court four years later, other methods Holdenville, Idabel, Lawton, Madill,were soon employed to keep black Oklaho- Mannford, Muldrow, Norman, Nowata,mans from the polls. Nor did the Jim Crow leg- Okemah, Oklahoma City, Purcell, Shawnee,islation stop there. In the end, the state Wagoner, and Wewoka.30legislature passed a number of segregationstatutes, including one which made Oklahoma The Sooner State also proved to be fertilethe first state in the Union to segregate its tele- ground for the newly revived Ku Klux Klan. Es-phone booths.29 timates vary, but at the height of its power in the mid-1920s, it is believed that there were more Racial violence, directed against black than 100,000 klansmen in Oklahoma. ChaptersOklahomans, also was a grim reality during existed statewide, and the organization’s mem-this period. In large part owing to conditions of bership rolls includedfarmers,ranchers,miners,frontier lawlessness, Oklahoma had long been oil field workers, small town merchants, big cityplagued by lynchings,andduringtheterritorial businessmen, ministers, newspaper editors, po-days, numerous suspected horse thieves, cattle licemen, educators, lawyers, judges, and politi-rustlers, and outlaws, the vast majority of cians. Most Klan activities — including crosswhom were white, had been lynched by white burnings, parades, night riding, whippings, andmobs. However, from 1911 onward, all of the other forms of violence and intimidation —state’s lynching victims, save one, were Afri- tended to be local in nature, although at onecan American. And during the next decade, point the political clout of the state organization 46

was so great that it managed to launch im- sitting between them, heading east in open tour-peachment proceedings against GovernorJohn ing cars. Suspected bootleggers, wife-cheaters,C. Walton, who opposed the Klan.31 and automobile thieves were among the most common victims — but they weren’t the only Tulsa, in particular, became a lively center ones. In May 1922, black Deputy sheriff Johnof Klan activity. While membership figures Henry Smitherman was kidnaped by klansmen,are few and far between — one estimate held who sliced off one of his ears. Fifteen months later, Na than Hantaman, a Jew ish movie pro jec-that there were some 3,200 members of the tionist, was kidnaped by Klan members, whoTulsa Klan in December 1921 — perhaps as nearly beat him to death. The city’s Catholicmany as six-thousand white Tulsans, at one population also was the target of considerabletime or another, became members of the Klan abuse, as Tulsa klansmen tried to force localincluding several prominent local leaders. At businessmen to fire their Catholic employees.34one Klan initiation ceremony, that took placein the countryside south of town during the Not all white Tulsans, of course, or even asummer of 1922, more than one-thousand new majority, belonged to the Ku Klux Klan in themembers were initiated, causing a huge traffic 1920s. Among the city’s white Protestants,therejam on the road to Broken Arrow. Tulsa also were many who disdained both the Klan’s tac-was home to a thriving chapter of the Women tics and beliefs. Nonetheless, at least until theof the Ku Klux Klan as well as being one of the mid-1920s, and in some ways all the way until the end of the decade, there is no doubt but thatfew cities in the country with an active chapter the Ku Klux Klan was a powerful force in theof the organization’s official youth affiliate, life of the city.35the Junior Ku Klux Klan. There were Klan pa-rades, Klan funerals, and Klan fund-raisers in- Less easy to document, however, is whethercluding one wildly successful 1923 benefit the Klan was organized in Tulsa prior to thethat netted some $24,000, when 13 Ford auto- 1921 race riot. While there have been a numbermobiles were raffled off. In time, the Tulsa of allegations over the years claiming that theKlan grew so solvent that it built its own brick Klan was directly involved in the riot, the evi-auditorium, Beno Hall — short, it was said, for dence is quite scanty — in either direction — as“Be No Nigger, Be No Jew, Be No Catholic” to whether or not the Klan had an actual organi-— on Main Street just north of downtown. zational presence in the city prior to August 1921, some two months after the riot. However, The local Klan also was highly ac tive in pol- since this is an area of continuing interest, it may prove help ful to ex am ine this ev i dence a bititics in Tulsa. It regularly issued lists of more closely.Klan-approved candidates for both state andlocal political offices, that were prominently According to the best available scholarship,displayed in Tulsa newspapers. According to the first Klan organizers to officially visitone student of the Klan in Tulsa Country dur- Oklahoma—George Kimbro, Jr. and George C.ing the 1920s, “mayors, city commissioners, McCarron, both from Houston — did not arrivesher iffs, dis trict at tor neys, and many other city until the summer of 1920. Setting up headquar-and county office holders who were either ters in the Baltimore Building in downtownklansmen or Klan supporters were elected, and Oklahoma City, McCarron stayed on in the statereelected, with regularity.” In 1923, three of capital, and began looking for future klansmenthe five members of the Oklahoma House of among the membership of the city’s variousRepresentatives from Tulsa Country were ad- white fraternal orders. According to Carter Bluemitted klansmen.33 Clark, whose 1976 doctoraldissertationremains the standard work on the history of the Ku Klux In addition to cross burnings, Tulsa Klan Klan in Oklahoma, McCarron “shortly hadmembers also routinely engaged in acts of vio- twelve Kleagles [assistant organizers] workinglence and intimidation. Richard Gary, who out of his office selling memberships through-lived off Admiral Boulevard during the early1920s, still has vivid memories of hoodedklansmen, a soon-to-be horsewhipped victim 47

out the city, and very soon throughout the The fact the brothers ran the advertisementstate.” While Clark concluded that the Klan would seem to suggest that on the eve of the“could not be credited with precipitating the riot, the existence of the Ku Klux Klan in Tulsariot” — a finding shared by most scholars of was far from common knowledge, perhaps re-the riot — he also determined that Klan orga- flecting membership numbers that were stillnizers had been active in the Tulsa region be- low.40forehand. The riot would change all of that. Beginning The fact that Tulsa would have been an early with what one student of the history of the Klan described as “the first open sign of the Klan’sdestination for Klan organizers — who, like presence in Tulsa” in early August 1921, moretheir counterparts elsewhere, were paid on a than two months after the riot, the Klan literallycommission basis — is entirely reasonable. exploded across the city. On August 10, moreNot only did Tulsa itself offer a large base of than two-thousand people attended a lecture atpotential members, but the city was a likely Convention Hall by a Klan spokesman from At-jumping-off place for organizing the nearby oil lanta. Three weeks later, on the evening of Au-fields.37 gust 31, some three-hundred white Tulsa men were initiated into the Klan at a ceremony held Other evidence also points toward there be- outside of town. Three days later, masked klans-ing members of the Klan in Tulsa prior to the men kid naped an al leged boot leg ger named J.E.riot. In the sermon he delivered on Sunday eve- Frazier and took him to a remote spot outside of Owasso and whipped him severely. After thening, June 5, 1921 — only four days after the county at tor ney sub se quently an nounced that heriot — Bishop E.D. Mouzon told parishioners would take no action against the klansmen, andat Boston Avenue Methodist Church that, intimated that the victim probably got what he“There may be some of you here tonight who deserved, more whippings soon followed. Withare members of the Ku Klux Klan.” Further- the attack on J.E. Frazier, Tulsa’s Klan era be-more, research conducted by Ruth Avery in the gan in earnest.1960s and 1970s also points toward pre-riotKlan membership in Tulsa.38 Despite the lack of convincing evidence link- ing the Klan to the outbreak of the riot in the However, other evidence suggests that, if months that followed, Klan organizers used theanything, the Klan had a very limited presence riot as a recruiting tool. The Klan lecturer fromin Tulsa before the riot. Throughout the first Atlanta who visited Tulsa in August 1921 de-five months of 1921, for example, the Tulsa clared that “the riot was the best thing that everTribune did not hesitate to print stories about happened to Tulsa,” while other Klan spokes-Ku Klux Klan activities elsewhere, but gave men preyed upon the heightened emotionalno hint of there being any in Tulsa.39 state of the white community after the riot. However the pitch was made, it soon became Moreover, only one week before the riot, on abun dantly clear that Tulsa was prime re cruit ingMay 22, 1921, the Tribune carried an adver- territory for the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed, it hadtisement for the May Brothers clothing store been for quite some time.41which poked fun at the Klan. Announcing thatthe downtown men’s clothiers had created its Despite the fact that segregation appeared toown “Kool Klad Klan,” the advertisement be gain ing ground state wide, in the months lead-went on to explain that this was a “hot weather ing up to the riot, more than a few white Tulsanssociety” whose members would receive dis- instead feared, at least in Tulsa itself, that thecounts on their purchases of summer clothing. opposite was true. Many were especially in- censed when black Tulsans disregarded, or“Men who join the K.K.K. pay less for their challenged, Jim Crow practices. Others weresummer clothes and get more out of them,” ran both enraged at, and jealous of, the materialthe ad copy, “Palm Beach is the favoritesuitof success of some of Greenwood’s leading citi-most members.” What went unspoken, how-ever, is that the May brothers were Jewish im-migrants from Russia, something that madethem likely candidates for Klan harassment. 48

zens — feelings that were no doubt increased new skyscrapers and impressive mansions, itsby the sharp drop in the price of crude oil, and booming oil industry and its rags-to-riches mil-the subsequent layoffs in the oil fields, that lionaires, some visitors — like the federal agentpreceded the riot. Indeed, an unidentified who spent five days undercover in Tulsa in latewriter for one white Tulsa publication, the Ex- April, 1921 — saw a far different side of localchange Bureau Bulletin, later listed “niggers life. In his “Report on Vice Conditions inwith money” as one of the so-called causes of Tulsa”, the agent had found that:the catastrophe. During the weeks and monthsleading up to the riot, there were more than a Gambling, bootlegging and prostitutionfew white Tulsans who not only feared that the are very much in evidence. At the leadingcolor line was in danger of being slowly hotels and rooming houses the bell hopserased, but believed that this was already hap- and porters are pimping for women, andpening.42 also selling booze. Regarding violations of the law, these prostitutes and pimps solicit Adding to these fears was the simple reality without any fear of the police, as they willthat, at the time, the vast majority of white invariably remind you that you are safe inTulsans possessed almost no direct knowledge these houses.of the African American community whatso-ever. Although a handful of whites owned The agent concluded, “Vice conditionsinthis city are extremely bad.”48businesses in Greenwood, and a few others oc-casionally visited the area for one reason or an- Few Tulsans, in those days, would have beenother, most white Tulsans had never set foot in surprised by the agent’s findings. In addition tothe African American district, and never the city’s growing fame as the Oil Capital, Tulsawould. Living in all-white neighborhoods, at- also was gaining something of a reputation —tending all-white schools and churches, and and not just regionally, but also among Newworking for the most part in all- white work York bankers and insurance men — as aenvironments, the majority of white Tulsans in wide-open town, a place where crime and crimi-1921 had little more than fleeting contact with nals were as much a part of the oil boom as wellthe city’s black population. What little they logs and drilling rigs.knew, or thought they knew, about the AfricanAmerican communitywassusceptiblenotonly Most certainly, there was plenty of evidence to sup port such a con clu sion. Well-known gam-to ra cial ste reo types and deeply-ingrained prej- bling dens — like Dutch Weete’s place threeudices, but also to rumor, innuendo, and, as miles east of the fairgrounds, or Puss Hall’sevents would soon prove, what was printed in roadhouse along the Turley highway — flour-the newspaper. ished on the outskirts of town, while within the city, both a fortune in oil royalties, or a rough- Such conditions, it turned out, proved help- neck’s wages, could be gambled away, night af-ful to the Klan, and both before and after the ter night, in poker games in any number ofriot, Klan organizers exploited the racial con- hotels and rooming houses.cerns of white Tulsans as a method of boostingmembership. However, the organizers also During the Prohibition era, both Oklahomaused something else. Race relations was not and the nation were supposedly dry, althoughthe only major societal issue that weighed one would not know it from a visit to Tulsa. Oneheavily on the minds of many Tulsans during well-known local watering hole flourished in the Boston Building, less that two blocks fromthe months that led up to the riot. Rather, they police headquarters, while scattered across thewere also deeply concerned about something city were a number of illegal bars offering cornelse — something that, in the end, proved to be whiskey, choc beer, or the latest rage, “Jake\" ora gateway to catastrophe. jamaica gin ger. In Green wood, cus tom ers with a taste for live music with their whiskey might Of all the visitors who came to Tulsa in the frequent Pretty Belle’s place, while on the southmonths preceding the riot, not everyone left side of town, the well-to-do oil set, it was said,town with a positive image. Despite the city’s 49

purchased their liquor from a woman living at to do something about the local crime condi-Third and Elgin. Hotel porters and bellhops tions. In 1914, the Ministerial Alliance hadregularly delivered pints and quarts to their mounted a cam paign against gam bling and otherguests, while an active bootlegging network forms of vice. Five years later, a group ofoperated out of the city’s drug stores and phar- well-known white lead ers formed a “Com mit teemacies. For customers who placed a premium of One Hundred” to combat local crime prob-on discretion, both bootleggers and taxi driv- lems. Two years after that, in early 1921, theers alike would also make regular home deliv- group was revived, vowing to see that a “cleaneries.44 sweep of criminals is made here and that the laws are enforced.”48 Illegal drugs were also present. Morphine,cocaine, and opium could all be purchased in However, there was a dark side to localTulsa, apparently without much difficulty. In- anti-crime efforts as well. As young as the citydeed, one month before the riot, federal nar- of Tulsa was in the spring of 1921, it could al-cot ics of fi cer Charles C. Post, de clared, “Tulsa ready claim a long history of vigilante activity.is overrun with narcotics.”45 In 1894, a white man known as “Dutch John,” who was suspected of being a cattle rustler, was Hand-in-hand with this illegal consumption reportedly lynched in Tulsa. Ten years later, incame a plenitude of other crime. Automobile 1904, a mob of whites gathered outside of thetheft was said to be so common in Tulsa prior local jail, intending to lynch an African Ameri-to the riot, it was claimed, that “a number of can prisoner held inside, but were turned awaycompanies have can celed all pol i cies on cars in by the mayor, a local banker, and, not the least,Tulsa.” Petty crimes, from housebreaking to by the city marshall, who had drawn both of histraffic violations, were common fodder in the guns on the mob.49city’s newspapers during this period — but sowere more se ri ous of fenses. In the year pre ced- Although violence had been averted, that wasing the riot, two Tulsa police officers had been far from the end of vigilantism in Tulsa. Inkilled on duty, while less than six weeks before 1917, after the United States had entered Worldthe riot, Tulsa police officers were involved in War I, a secret society calling itself the Knightsa spectacular shoot-out with armed bandits at of Liberty unleashed a local campaign of terroran east side room ing house. State As sis tant At- and intimidation against suspected slackers,torney General George F. Short, who visited Men no nites and other pac i fists, as well as po lit i-Tulsa during this same period, even went so cal radicals. The group’s most infamous actionfar as to describe the local crime conditions as — that gained the attention of the national press“apparently grave.”46 — came in November 1917 when, with the en- cour age ment of the white press and the ap par ent While not everyone in town would have cooperation of the local authorities, maskedagreed with such a bleak assessment, there members of the Knights tarred and featheredwas no denying the fact that, on the eve of the more than a dozen local members of the Indus-race riot, the city had a serious crime problem. trial Workers of the World, a radical unionHowever, it was equally true that, in many movement, and forced them out of town at gun-ways, this was not only nothing new, but had point.50more or less been a constant since the firstheady days of the Glenn Pool and its attendant Even though the Knights of Liberty/I.W.W.land swindles and get-rich-quick schemes. in ci dent had been an all-white af fair, it proved to“Tulsans on the whole have had enough of the be an important step along the road to the raceslime and crime that characterize a new com- riot. Not only did local law enforcement refusemunity which draws much of the bad with the to actively investigate the incident, but the se-good in a rich strike,” mused one localeditorial cret society was praised by the white press forwriter, “But Tulsa has out grown that stage.”47 taking the law into its own hands, an important precedent for more such activities in the fu- A number of Tulsans had attempted, seem- ture.51ingly without a great deal of success, for years 50

Nevertheless, it would not be until nearly County Sheriff Jim Woolley had heard rumorsthree years later, during the late summer of that if the cab driver died, the courthouse would1920, that Tulsa would experience an incident be mobbed and Roy Belton would be lynched.54that would prove to be the single most impor-tant precursor to the race riot. While all of its Two days later, on Saturday, August 28,participants also were white, it, too, would 1920, Homer Nida finally succumbed to hishave profound reverberations on both sides of wounds and died. In reporting the news of histhe color line. death in that afternoon’s edition, the Tulsa Tri- bune quoted the driver’s widow as saying that It be gan on Sat ur day night, Au gust 21, 1920, Belton deserved “to be mobbed, but the otherwhen a Tulsa cab driver named Homer Nida. way is better.”55was hired by two young men and one youngwoman to drive them to a dance in Sapulpa. Other Tulsans thought otherwise. By 11:00Along the way, in the countryside past Red p.m. that same evening, hundreds of whites hadFork, one of the men pulled out a revolver and gath ered out side of the court house. Soon, a del e-forced Nida to pull over. Striking the terrified gation of men carrying rifles and shotguns,cab driver with the pistol, the gunman de- some with handkerchiefs covering their faces,manded money. When Nida could not produce entered the building and demanded of Sheriffa sufficient amount of cash, the gunman shot Woolley that he turn Belton over to them. TheNida in the stomach and kicked him out onto sheriff later claimed that he tried to dissuade thethe highway, as the trio sped off in thenow-stolen taxi. A pass ing mo tor ist dis cov ered intruders, but he appears to have done little toNida a short while later, and rushed the se- stop them. For a little while later, the men ap-verely wounded driver to a hospital.52 peared on the courthouse steps with Roy Belton. “We got him boys,” they shouted, “We’ve got The next day, police in Nowata, acting on a him.56tip, arrested an eighteen-year-old one-timetelephone company employee named Roy Belton was then placed in Homer Nida’s taxi-Belton, who denied having had anything to do cab which had been stolen from the authoritieswith the affair. Belton was taken to Homer — and was driven out past Red Fork, followedNida’s hospital room in Tulsa, where the cab by a line of automobiles “nearly a mile long.”driver identified him as his assailant. Again, Not far from where Nida had been shot, the pro-Belton denied the accusation. cession stopped, and Belton was taken from the cab and interrogated. But when a rumor spread Two days later, however, Roy Belton whowas now being held in the jail located on the that a posse was in hot pursuit, everyone re-top floor of the Tulsa County Courthouse turned to their cars and set out along the road tochanged his story. He admitted that he had Jenks.been in the taxicab, and that he and his accom-plices had planned on robbing the driver. He The lynch mob had little to fear. Tulsa policeinsisted the shooting had been accidental. did not arrive at the courthouse in any apprecia-Belton claimed that the gun had been damaged ble numbers until after Belton had been kid-when he struck Nida in the head with it, and naped and the caravan of cars had leftthat it had gone off accidentally while he was downtown. “We did the best thing,” Policetying to repair it.53 Chief John Gustafson later claimed, “[we] jumped into cars and followed the ever increas- Belton’s dubious account, however, only ing mob.”added fuel to the already inflamed emotionsthat many Tulsans already held about the By the time police officers finally caught upshooting, a situation made even more tense bythe fact that Homer Nida lay languishing in a with the lynching party, it had reassembledTulsa hospital. Less than forty-eight hours af- along the Jenks road about three miles south -ter Belton’s so-called “confession,” Tulsa west of Tulsa. Once again, Roy Belton was taken from the cab, and then led to a spot next to a roadside sign. A rope was procured from a nearby farmhouse, a noose was thrown around his neck, and he was lynched. Among the crowd 51

— estimated to be in the hundreds — were black, he would have been lynched just themembers of the Tulsa police, who had been in- same, and probably sooner. What about the nextstructed by Chief Gustafson not to intervene. time that an African American was charged with“Any demonstration from an officer,” he later a serious crime in Tulsa, particularly if it in-claimed, “would have started gun play and volved a white victim? What would happendozens of innocent people would have been then?killed and injured.”57 A.J. Smitherman, the outspoken editor of the In the days that followed, however, Tulsa Star, the city’s oldest and most popularGustafson practically applauded the lynching. African American newspaper, was absolutelyWhile claiming to be “absolutely opposed” to resolute on the matter of lynching. “There is nomob law, the police chief also stated “it is myhonest opinion that the lynching of Roy Belton W. H. Twine and A. J. Smitherman at Twine’s law office inwill prove of real benefit to Tulsa and the vi- Muskogee (Courtesy Western History Collection, University ofcinity. It was an object lesson to the hijackers Oklahoma Li braries).and auto thieves.” Sheriff Woolley echoed thechief, claiming that the lynching showed crim- crime, however atrocious,” he wrote followingi nals “that the men of Tulsa mean busi ness.”58 the lynching of Roy Belton, “that justifies mob violence.”60 For Smitherman, lynching was not Nor were Tulsa’s top lawmen alone in their simply a crime to be condemned, but was liter-sentiments. The Tulsa Tribune, the city’s af- ally a “stain” upon society.61ternoon daily, also claimed to be opposed tomob law, but offered little criticism of the ac- Nor was Smitherman alone in his sentiments.tual lynching party. The Tulsa World, the If there was one issue which united Africanmorning daily, went even further. Calling the Americans all across the nation, it was opposi-lynching a “righteous protest,” the newspaper tion to mob law. Moreover, that opposition wasadded: “There was not a vestige of the mob par tic u larly strong in Oklahoma, as many blacksspirit in the act of Saturday night. It was citi- had immigrated to the state in no small measurezenship, outraged by government inefficiency to escape the mob mentality that was far fromand a too tender regard for the professional un com mon in some other parts of the coun try.criminal.” The World went on to blast the cur-rent state of the criminal justice system, omi- However, both the lynching of Roy Belton in Tulsa, and that of a young African American innously adding, “we predict that unlessconditions are speedily improved,” that thelynching of Roy Belton “will not be the last byany means.”59 With the death of Roy Belton, Tulsa had notsimply joined the list of other Oklahoma citiesand towns where, sadly enough, a lynching hadoccurred. Of equal importance was the factthat, as far as anyone could tell, the local lawenforcement authorities in Tulsa had done pre-cious lit tle to stop the lynch ing. Thus, the ques-tion arose, if another mob ever gathered inTulsa to lynch someone else, who was going tostop them? The lynching of Roy Belton cast a deep pallover black Tulsa. For even though HomerNida, Roy Belton, and the lynching party itselfhad all been white, there was simply no escap-ing the conclusion that if Belton had been 52

Oklahoma City that same week, brought to the his assailants were black, and he provided thesurface some dire practical issues. In a situa- officers with a rather sketchy description oftion where a black prisoner was being threat- each man. “Violence is feared,” wrote the Tulsaened by a white mob, what should African Democrat of the shooting, “if the guilty pair isAmericans do? Smitherman was quite clear on taken in charge.”65the answer.As early as 1916, it has been re -ported, “a group of armed blacks pre vented the Some forty-eight hours later, Tulsa police of-lynching of one of their number inMuskogee.”62 In a similar situation, which ficers arrested not two, but three, African Amer-happened only five months prior to the Tulsa ican men in connection with the shooting.riot, Smitherman had strongly praised a group Despite proclamations by the police that the ac-of black men who had first armed themselves, cused men would be protected, concerns forand then set out in pursuit of a white mob that their safety quickly spread across the blackwas en route to lynch an African American community, and rumors began to circulate thatprisoner at Chandler. “As to the Colored men the trio might be in danger of being lynched. Theof Shawnee,” Smitherman wrote, rumors reached a crescendo the day after the iron worker’s fu neral, when a del e ga tion of Af ri- . . . they are the heroes of the story. If can American men — some of them armed –led one set of men arm themselves and chase by Dr. R.T. Bridgewater, a well-known physi- across the country to violate the law, cer- cian, paid an evening visit to the city jail, where tainly another set who arm themselves to the accused men were being held.66 uphold the supremacy of the law and pre- vent crime, must stand out prominently as “We understand there is to be some trouble the best citizens. Therefore, the action of here,” Dr. Bridgewater reportedly informed a the Colored men in this case is to be com- police captain. mended. We need more citizens like them in every community and of both races.63 The police officer was adamant that nothing of the kind was go ing to oc cur. “There is not go- Five months later, when a group of African ing to be any trouble here,” the captainallegedlyAmer i cans in the state cap i tal had not gath ered replied, “and the best thing you fellows can dountil after a black youth had been lynched by a is beat it back and drop the firearms.” Despitewhite mob, Smitherman was unsparing in his his confidence, however, the officer allowed acriticism. “It is quite evident,” he wrote, “that small contingent to visit with the prisoners inthe proper time to afford protection to any their cells. Apparently satisfied with the situa-prisoner is BEFORE and during the time he isbeing lynched.”64 tion, Dr. Bridgewater and the other African American men returned to Greenwood. There It also was clear that there were black was no lynching.67Tulsans who were prepared to do just that. Alittle more than a year before Roy Belton was Whatever relief black Tulsans may have feltlynched, an incident occurred in Tulsa that — following this affair did not last long. With thewhile it received little press coverage at the lynching of Roy Belton some seventeen monthstime —- gave a clear indication as to what ac- later, the door to mob vi o lence in Tulsa was sud-tions some black Tulsans would take if they denly pushed wide open. If a white could befeared that an African American was in danger lynched in Tulsa, why would a black not sufferof becoming the victim of mob violence. the same fate? Moreover, as editor Smitherman observed, the Belton lynching had also clarified The incident began on the evening of March another matter — one that would prove to be of17, 1919, when a white ironworker was shotby two armed stick-up men on the outskirts of vital importance on May 3l, 1921. “The lynch-downtown. The ironworker died of his wounds ing of Roy Belton,” Smitherman wrote in thesome twelve hours later, but before he suc- Tulsa Star, “explodes the theory that a prisonercumbed, he told Tulsa police detectives that is safe on the top of the Court House from mob violence.”68 The death of Roy Belton shattered any confi- dence that black Tulsans may have had in the 53

abil ity, or the will ing ness, of lo cal law en force- In addition to giving broad coverage to both lo-ment to prevent a lynching from taking place calcriminalactivity, andtosensationalmurdersin Tulsa. It also had done something else. For from across the state, the Tribune also publishedmore than a few black TuIsans, the bot tom line a series of hard-hitting editorials. Using titleson the matter had become clearer than ever. such as “Catch the Crooks,” “Go After Them,”Namely, the only ones who might prevent the “Promoters of Crime,\" “To Make Every Daythreatened lynching of an African American Safe,” “The City Failure,” and ‘Make Tulsa De-prisoner in Tulsa would be black TuIsans cent,\" the editorials called for nothing less thanthemselves. an aggressive citywide clean-up campaign.70 Despite the clarity of these conclusions, it is Not surprisingly,the Tribune’s campaign ruf-important to note that white Tulsans were ut- fled the feathers of some local law enforcementterly unaware of what their black neighbors figures along the way, including the county at-were thinking. Although A.J. Smitherman’s torney, the police commissioner, and severaleditorials regarding lynching were both direct members of the Tulsa Police Department. Whileand plainspoken, white Tulsans did not read it is uncertain as to how much of the Tribune’sthe Tulsa Star, and Smitherman’s opinions campaign had been motivatedbypartisanpoliti-were not reported in the white press. As dra- cal concerns, both the paper’s news stories andmatic and as significant as the visit of Dr. its editorials caused considerable commotion.Bridgewater and the others was to the city jail Allegations of police corruption — particularlyduring the 1919 incident, it received little cov- regarding automobile theft — received a greaterage in the city’s white newspapers at the amount of at ten tion, and ul ti mately led to for maltime, and was no doubt quickly forgotten. investigations of local law enforcement by both the State of Oklahoma and the City of Tulsa.71 Rather, when it came to the matter of lynch-ing, black Tulsa and white Tulsa were like two By mid-May 1921, the Tribune’s anti-crimeseparate galaxies, with one quite unaware of and anti-corruption campaign seemed to be onwhat the other was thinking. However, as the the verge of reaching some sort of climax.year 1921 began to unfold, events would soon Branding the city government’s investigation ofbring them crashing into one another. the police department as a “whitewash,” the newspaper kept hammering away at the alleged In 1921, most Tulsans received their news inability of, or refusal by, local law enforcementthrough either one or both of the city’s twodaily newspapers — the Tulsa World, which to tackle Tulsa’s crime problem. “The peo ple ofwas the morning paper, or the Tulsa Tribune, Tulsa are becoming awake to conditions that arewhich came out in the afternoon. While the no longer tolerable,” argued a May 14 editorial.World went all the way back to 1905, the Tri- Two days later, in an editorial titled “Better Getbune was only two years old. It was the cre- Busy,” the Tribune warned that if the mayor andation of Richard Lloyd Jones, a Wisconsin the city commission did not fulfill their cam-born newspaperman who had also worked as a paign pledges to “clean up the city,” and “do itmagazine editor in New York. Hoping to chal- quick,” that “an awakened community con-lenge the more established — and, in many science will do it for them.”72ways, more restrained — Tulsa World, Joneshad fashioned the Tribune as a lively rival, un- Just what that might entail was also becomingafraid to stir up an occasional hornet’s nest.69 clearer and clearer. The very same months dur- ing which the Tribune waged its anti-crimeAs it turned out, Tulsa’s vexing crime problem campaign, the newspaper also gave prominentproved to be an ideal local arena in which the attention to news stories involving vigilante ac-Tri bune could hope to make a name for it self tivities from across the Southwest. Front-page coverage was given to lynching threats made Sensing just how frustrated many Tulsans against African Americans in Okmulgee inwere with the local crime conditions, the Tri- March, Oktaha in April, and Hugo in May. Thebune launched a vigorous anti-crime campaign horsewhipping of an alleged child molester inthat ran throughout the early months of 1921. 54

Dallas by a group of masked men believed to ing houses across the city. It was said, Africanbe members of the Ku Klux Klan that also took American porters rather routinely offered toplace in May, was also given front-page treat- provide the men with the services of white pros-ment. Not surprisingly, the specter of Tulsa’s titutes. Just beyond the city limits, the Tribuneown recent lynching also re-emerged in the reported, the group visited a roadhouse wherepages of the Tribune in a May 26 editorial. the color lines seemed to have disappeared en-While asserting that “Lawlessness to fightlawlessness is never justified,” the editorial tirely. “We found whites and Negroes singingwent on to claim “Tulsa en joyed a brief re spite and dancing together,” one member of Rever-following the lynching of Roy Belton.” More- end Cooke’s party testified, “Young, white girlsover, the Tribune added that Belton’s guilt had were dancing while Negroes played the pi-been “practically established . . ..”73 ano.”75 A revived discussion of the pros and cons of Considering Oklahoma’s social, political,vigilante activity was not the only new ele- and cultural climate during the 1920s, the effectment to be added to the ongoing conversation of this testimony should not be taken lightly.about crime that was taking place in Tulsa in Many white Tulsans no doubt found Reverendlate May. Despite latter claims to the contrary, Cooke’s revelations to be both shocking andfor much of early 1921, race had not been dis taste ful. Per haps even more im por tantly, theymuch of a factor in the Tribune’s vigorous now had a convenient new target for their grow-anti-crime and anti-corruption campaign.Crimes in Greenwood had not been given un- ing anger over local crime conditions. Africandue coverage, nor had black Tulsans been sin- American men who, at least as far as they weregled out for providing the city with a concerned, had far too much contact with whitedisproportionate share of the city’s criminal el- women.ement. As it turned out however, Tulsans did not But beginning on May 21, 1921, only ten have much time to digest the new revelations.days before the riot, all that was to change. In a Only five days later, on May 26, 1921, the citylengthy, front-page article concerning the on- was rocked by the news of a spectacular jail-going investigation of the police department, break at the county courthouse. Sawing theirnot only did racial issues suddenly come to the way through their cell doors and through the one-inch steel bars that were set in an outer win-foreground, but more importantly, they did so dow, and then lowering themselves four storiesin a manner that featured the highly explosivesubject of relations between black men and to the ground on a rope that they had made by ty-white women. Commenting on the city’s ram- ing their blankets together, no less than twelvepant prostitution industry, a former judge prisoners had escaped from the top floor jail.flatly told the investigators that black men Remarkably, however, that was not the last jail-were at the root of the problem. “We’ve got to break that month. Four days later, early on theget to the hotels,” he said, “We’ve got to kick morning of Memorial Day, May 30, 1921, sixout the Negro pimps if we want to stop this more prisoners — sawing through the samevice.” hastily re paired cell doors and win dow bars also escaped from the courthouse jail.77 Echoing these sentiments was the testimonyof Reverend Harold G. Cooke, the white pastor Although some of the escapees were quickly apprehended, the jailbreaks were one more in-of CentenaryMethodistChurch.Accompanied gredient in what had become, by the end of Mayby a private detective, Cooke had led a smallgroup of white men on an undercover tour of 1921, an unstable and potentially volatile localthe city’s illicit nightlife — and had been, it atmosphere. For more than a few white Tulsans,was reported, horrified at what he had discov- local conditions regarding crime and punish-ered. Not only was liquor available at every ment were fast becoming intolerable. Frustratedplace that they visited, but at hotels and room- over the amount of lawbreaking in the city, and by the apparent inability of the police to do any- thing about it, they had helped turn the city into a 55

ticking time bomb, where anger and frustra- Approximately one year later, Damie and hertion sat just beneath the surface, waiting to ex- adopted son moved to Tulsa, where they wereplode. Moreover, during the last ten days of reunited with Damie’s family, the Rowlands.the month, they also had been presented with, Eventually, little Jimmie took Rowland as hishowever fleetingly, a compelling new target own last name, and selected his favorite firstfor their fury, namely, black men who, to their name, Dick, as his own. Growing up in Tulsa,eyes, had an undue familiarity with white Dick attended the city’s separate all-blackwomen. schools, including Booker T. Washington High School, where he played football.78 As Tulsa prepared to celebrate MemorialDay, May 30, 1921, something else was in the Dick Rowland dropped out of high school toair. As notions of taking the law into their own take a job shining shoes in a white-owned andhands began to once again circulate among white-patronized shine parlor located down-some white Tulsans, across the tracks in town on Main Street. Shoe shines usually cost aGreenwood, there were black Tulsans who dime in those days, but the shoe shiners — orwere more determined than ever that in their bootblacks, as they were sometimes called —city, no African American would fall victim to were often tipped a nickel for each shine, andmob violence. World War I veterans and sometimes considerably more. Over the coursenewspaper editors, common laborers and busi- of a busy working day, a shoe shiner couldnessmen, they were just as prepared as they pocket a fair amount of money — especially ifhad been two years earlier to make certain that he was a teenaged African Amer i can youth withno black person was ever lynched in Tulsa, few other job prospects.Oklahoma. There were no toilet facilities, however, for Precisely at this moment, in this highly blacks at the shine parlor where Dick Rowlandcharged atmosphere, that two previously un- worked. The owner had arranged for his Africanheralded Tulsans, named Dick Rowland and American employees to be able to use aSarah Page, walked out of the shadows, and “Colored” restroom that was located, nearby, inonto the stage of history. the Drexel Building at 319 S. Main Street. In or- der to gain access to the washroom, located on Although they played a key role in the the top floor, Rowland and the other shoe shin-events which directly led to Tulsa’s race riot, ers would ride in the build ing’s sole el e va tor. El-very little is known for certain about either evators were not automatic, requiring anDick Rowland or Sarah Page. Rumors, theo- operator. A job that was usually reserved forries, and unsubstantiated claims have been women.79plentiful throughout the years, but hard evi-dence has been much more difficult to come In late May 1921, the elevator operator at theby. Drexel Building was a seventeen-year-old white woman named Sarah Page. Thought to Dick Rowland, who was black, was said to have come to Tulsa from Missouri, she appar-have been nineteen-years-old at the time of the ently lived in a rented room on North Bostonriot. At the time of his birth, he was given the Avenue. It also has been reported that Page wasname Jimmie Jones. While it is not known attending a local business school, a good careerwhere he was born, by 1908 he and his two sis- move at the time. Although,Tulsa was still rid-ters had ev i dently been or phaned, and were liv- ing upon its construction boom, some buildinging “on the streets of Vinita, sleeping wherever owners were evidently hiring African Americanthey could, and begging for food.” An African women to replace their white elevator opera-American woman named Damie Ford, who tors.80ran a tiny one-room-grocery store, took pity onyoung Jimmie and took him in. “That’s how I Whether - and to what extent — Dickbecame Jimmie’s ‘Mama,”’ she told an inter- Rowland and Sarah Page knew each other hasviewer decades afterwards. long been a matter of speculation. It seems rea- sonable that they would have least been able to 56

recognize each other on sight, as Rowland ever, it simply is un clear what hap pened. Yet, inwould have regularly rode in Page’s elevator the days and years that followed, everyone whoon his way to and from the restroom. Others, knew Dick Rowland agreed on one thing: thathowever, have speculated that the pair might he would never have been capable of rape.83have been lovers — a dangerous and poten-tially deadly taboo, but not an impossibility. A clerk from Renberg’s, a clothing store lo- cated on the first floor of the Drexel Building,Damie Ford later suggested that this might however, reached the opposite conclusion.have been the case, as did Samuel M. Jackson, Hearing what he thought was a woman’swho operated a funeral parlor in Greenwood at scream, and apparently seeing Dick Rowlandthe time of the riot. “I’m going to tell you the hurriedly flee the building, the clerk rushed totruth,” Jackson told riot historian Ruth Avery a the elevator, where he found a distraught Sarahhalf century later, “He could have been going Page. Evidently deciding that the young eleva-with the girl. You go through life and you find tor operator had been the victim of an attemptedthat somebody likes you. That’s all there is to sexual assault, the clerk then summoned the po-it.” However, Robert Fairchild, who shined lice.shoes with Rowland, disagreed. “At thattime,” Fairchild later recalled, “the Negro had While it appears that the clerk stuck to his in-so much fear that he didn’t bother with inte- terpretation that there had been an attemptedgrated relationship[s].”81 rape — and of a particularly incendiary kind — no record exists as to what Sarah Page actually Whether they knew each other or not, it is told the police when they initially interviewedclear that both Dick Rowland and Sarah Page her. Whatever she said at the time, however, itwere downtown on Monday, May 30, 1921 — does not appear that the police officers who in-although this, too, is cloaked in some mystery. terviewed her necessarily reached the same po-On Me mo rial Day, most — but not all — stores tentially explosive conclusion as that made byand businesses in Tulsa were closed. Yet, both the Renberg’s clerk, namely, that a black maleRowland and Page were apparently working had at tempted to rape a white fe male in a down-that day. A large Memorial Day parade passed town office building. Rather than issue any sortalong Main Street that morning, and perhaps of an all-points bulletinforthe allegedassailant,Sarah Page had been required to work in order it appears that the police launched a ratherto transport Drexel Building employees and low-key investigation into the affair.84their families to choice parade viewing spots Whatever had or had not happened in theon the building’s upper floors. As for Dick Drexel Building elevator, Dick Rowland hadRowland, perhaps the shine parlor he worked become a justly terrified young man. For of allat may have been open, if nothing else, to draw the crimes that African American men would bein some of the parade traffic. One post-riot ac- accused of in early twentieth century America,count suggests another alternative, namely, none seemed to bring a white lynch mob to -that Rowland was making deliveries of shined gether faster than an accusation of the rape, orshoes that day. What is certain, however, is attempted rape, of a white woman. Frightenedthat at some point on Monday, May 30, 1921, and agitated, Rowland hastened to his adoptedDick Rowland entered the elevator operated by mother’s home, where he stayed inside withSarah Page that was situated at the rear of the blinds drawn.85Drexel Building.82 The next morning, Tuesday, May 31, 1921, What happened next is anyone’s guess. Af- Dick Rowland was ar rested on Green wood Av e-ter the riot, the most common explanation was nue by two Tulsa police officers, Detectivethat Dick Rowland tripped as he got onto the Henry Carmichael, who was white, and by Pa-elevator and, as he tried to catch his fall, he trolman Henry C. Pack, who was one of a hand-grabbed onto the arm of Sarah Page, who then ful of African Americans on the city’sscreamed. It also has been suggested that approximately seventy-five man police force.Rowland and Page had a lover’s quarrel. How- Rowland was booked at police headquarters, 57

and then taken to the jail on the top floor of the text of the missing — and what he believed wasTulsa County Courthouse. Informed that her no less than “inflammatory” — story, whichadopted son was in cus tody, Damie Ford seems read:to have lost no time in hiring a prominentwhite attorney to defend him.86 Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator Word of both the alleged incident in the A Ne gro de liv ery boy who gave his nameDrexel Building, and of the subsequent arrest to the public as “Diamond Dick” but whoof the alleged perpetrator, quickly spread has been identified as Dick Rowland, wasthroughout the city’s le gal cir cles. Black at tor- arrested on South Greenwood Avenue thisney B.C. Franklin was sitting in the courtroom morning by Officers Carmichael and Pack,during a recess in a trial when he overheard charged with attempting to assault thesome other lawyers discussing what he later 17-year-old white elevator girl in theconcluded was the alleged rape attempt. “I Drexel Building early yesterday.don’t believe a damn word of it,” one of themen said, “Why I know that boy and have He will be tried in municipal court this af-known him a good while. That’s not in him.”87 ternoon on a state charge. Not surprisingly, word of both the alleged The girl said she noticed the Negro a fewincident and of the arrest of Dick Rowland had minutes before the attempted assault look- ing up and down the hallway on the thirdalso made it to the offices of Tulsa’s two daily floor of the Drexel Building as if to see ifnewspapers, the Tribune and the World. Due to there was anyone in sight but thought noth-the timing of the events, the Tulsa Tribune ing of it at the time.would have the first crack at the story. Not onlyhad the alleged Drexel Building incident gone A few minutes later he entered the eleva-without notice in that morning’s Tulsa World tor she claimed, and attacked her, scratch-— perhaps, one is tempted to surmise, because ing her hands and face and tearing herword of the alleged incident had not yet made clothes. Her screams brought a clerk fromit to the paper’s news desk, which may have Renberg’s store to her as sis tance and the Ne-been short-staffed due to the holiday — but gro fled. He was captured and identifiedRowland’s arrest had apparently occurred after this morning both by the girl and the clerk,that morning’s edition had already been police say.printed.88 Being an afternoon paper, however,the Tulsa Tribune had enough time to break Tenants of the Drexel Building said thethe news in its regular afternoon editions — girl is an orphan who works as an elevatorwhich is exactly what it did. operator to pay her way through business college.89 Precisely what the Tulsa Tribune printed inits May 31, 1921 editions about the Drexel Since Gill’s thesis first appeared, additionalBuilding incident is still a matter of some con- copies of this front-page article have surfaced.jecture. The original bound volumes of the A copy can be found in the Red Cross papersnow defunct newspaper apparently no longer that are located in the collections of the Tulsaexist in their entirety. A microfilm version is, Historical Society. A second copy, apparentlyhowever, available, but before the actual mi- from the “State Edition” of the Tulsa Tribune,crofilming was done some years later, some- could once be found in the collections of the Oklahoma Historical Society, but has now evi-one had deliberately torn out of the May 31, dently disappeared.901921 city edition both a front-page article and,in addition, nearly all of the editorial page. This front page article was not, however, the only thing that the Tulsa Tribune seems to have We have known what the front-page story, printed about the Drexel Building incident in itstitled “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Eleva- May 31, edition. W.D. Williams, who latertor”, said for some time. In his 1946 master’s taught for years at Booker T. Washington Highthesis on the riot, Loren Gill printed the entire 58

School in Tulsa, had a vivid memory that the torial the paper would have run concerning theTribune ran a story titled “To Lynch Negro To- alleged Drexel Building incident would havenight.”91 In fact, however, what Williams may surely mentioned lynching as a possible fate forbe recalling is not another news article, but an Dick Rowland. Exactly what the newspapereditorial from the missing editorial page. would have said on the matter, however, can only be left to conjecture. Other informants, both black and white, but-tress Williams’s ac count. Spe cifically, they re- The Tuesday, May 31, 1921 edition of thecalled that the Tribune mentioned the Tulsa Tribune hit the streets at about 3:15 p.m.possibility of a lynching — something that is And while the “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl inentirely absent from the “Nab Negro for At- Elevator” was far from being the most promi-tacking Girl in Elevator” story, and thus must nent story on the front page of the city edition, ithave appeared elsewhere in the May 31, edi- was the story that garnered the most attention.tion. Robert Fairchild later recalled that the Making his way through downtown toward hisTribune “came out and told what happened. It office in Greenwood shortly after the Tribunesaid to the effect that ‘there is likely to be a rolled off the presses, attorney B.C. Franklinlynching in Tulsa tonight.’” One of Mary later recalled that “as I walked leisurely alongParrish’s informants, whom she interviewed the sidewalk, I heard the sharp shrill voice of ashortly after the riot, provided a similar ac- newsboy, “A Negro assaults a white girl.”93count: Indeed, lynch talk came right on the heels of The Daily Tribune, a white newspaper the Tribune’s sensational reporting. Ross T. that tries to gain its popularity by referring Warner, the white manager of the downtown of- to the Negro settlement as “Little Africa,” fices of the Tulsa Machine and Tool Company, came out on the evening of Tuesday, May wrote that after the Tribune came out that after- 31, with an article claiming that a Negro noon, “the talk of lynching spread like a prairie had experienced some trouble with a fire.” Similar memories were shared by Dr. white elevator girl at the Drexel Building. Blaine Waynes, an African Americanphysician It also said that a mob of whites was form- and his wife Maude, who reported that after the ing in order to lynch the Negro. Tribune was issued that day, that rumors of the “intended lynching of the accused Negro” Adjutant General Charles F. Barrett, who spread so swiftly and ominously that even “theled National Guard troops from OklahomaCity into Tulsa the next day, recalled that there novice and stranger” could readily sense thehad been a “fantastic write-up of the [Drexel fast-approaching chain of events that was aboutBuilding] incident in a sensation-seeking to unfold. By 4:00 p.m., the talk of lynchingnewspaper.”92 Dick Rowland had already grown so ubiquitous that Police and Fire Commissioner J.M. Given the fact that the editorial page from Adkison telephoned Sheriff Willardthe May 31, Tulsa Tribune was also deliber- McCullough and alerted him to theately removed, and that a copy has not yet sur- ever-increasing talk on the street.94faced, it is not difficult to conclude thatwhatever else the paper had to say about the al- Talk soon turned into action. As word of theleged incident, and what should be done in re- alleged sexual assault in the Drexel Buildingsponse to it, would have appeared in an spread, a crowd of whites be gan to gather on theeditorial. “To Lynch Negro Tonight” certainly street outside of the Tulsa County Courthouse,would have fit as the title to a Tribune editorialin those days. Moreover, given the seriousness in whose jail Dick Rowland was being held. Asof the charges against Dick Rowland, the ag- people got off of work, and the news of the al-gressiveness of the paper’s anti-crime cam- leged attack reported in the Tribune becamepaign, and the fact that a Tribune editorial had more widely dispersed across town, more andmentioned the lynching of Roy Belton only more white Tulsans, infuriated by what had sup-four days earlier, it is highly likely that any edi- posedly taken place in the Drexel Building, be- gan to gather out side the court house at Sixth and 59

Tulsa County Court house where al leged mur der Roy Belton was handed to an an gry mob. This event helped black lead-ers decide to offer assistance to Tulsa officials when Dick Rowland was held in the same position (Courtesy OklahomaHistorical Society).Boulder. By sunset — which came at 7:34 p.m. p.m., in a near replay of the Belton incident,that evening — observers estimated that the three white men entered the courthouse and de-crowd had grown into the hundreds. Not long manded that the sheriff turn over Rowland, butafterwards, cries of “Let us have the nigger” were angrily turned away. Even though hiscould be heard echoing off of the walls of the small force was vastly outnumbered by themassive stone courthouse.95 ever-increasing mob out on the street, McCullough, unlike his predecessor, was deter- Willard M. McCullough, who had recently mined to prevent another lynching.96been sworn in as the new sheriff of TulsaCounty, however, had other ideas. Determined Word of the alleged incident at the Drexelthat there would be no repeat of the RoyBelton affair during his time in office, he Building, and of the white mob that was gather-quickly took steps to ensure the safety of Dick ing outside of the courthouse, meanwhile, alsoRowland. Organizing his small force of depu- had raced across Greenwood. After reading theties into a defensive ring around his now terri- stories in the afternoon’s Tribune, Willie Wil-fied prisoner, McCullough positioned six of liams, a popular junior at Booker T. Washing-his men, armed with rifles and shotguns, on ton High School, had hurried over to histhe roof of the courthouse. He also disabled the family’s flagship business, the Dreamland The-building’s elevator, and had his remaining ater, at 127 N. Greenwood. Inside, he found amen barricade themselves at the top of the scene of tension and confusion. “We’re not go-stairs with orders to shoot any intruders on ing to let this happen,” declared a man who hadsight. leapt onto the theater’s stage, “We’re going to go downtown and stop this lynching. Close this McCullough also went outside, on the court-house steps, and tried to talk the would-be place down.”lynch mob into going home, but was “hooted Outside, similar discussions were takingdown” when he spoke. At approximatley 8:20 place up and down Greenwood Avenue, as black Tulsans debated how to respond to the in- 60

creasingly dire threat to Dick Rowland. B.C. low member of the race, but also, literally, uponFranklin later re called two army vet er ans out in the side of jus tice. Leaving Green wood by au to-the street, urging the crowd gathered about mobile, they drove down to the courthouse,them to take immediate action, while perhaps where the white mob had gathered. Armed withthe most intense discussions were held in the rifles and shotguns, the men got out of their au-offices of the Tulsa Star, the city’s premier Af- tomobiles, and marched to the courthouse steps.rican American newspaper. Their purpose, they announced to the no doubt What went un spo ken was the fact an Af ri can stunned authorities, was to offer their servicesAmerican had never been lynched in Tulsa. toward the defense of the jail — an offer thatHow to prevent one from taking place now was was immediately declined. Assured that Dickno easy mat ter. It was not sim ply the crime that Rowland was safe, the men then returned toDick Rowland had been charged with — al - their automobiles, and drove back to Green-though that, by itself, made the situation par- wood.98ticularly dire. Rather, with the lynching of RoyBelton only nine months earlier, there was now The visit of the African American veteransno rea son at all to place much con fi dence in the had an electrifying effect, however, on theability of the local authorities to protect Dick white mob, now estimated to be more than oneRowland from the mob of whites that was thousand strong. Denied Rowland by Sheriff McCullough, it had been clear for some timegathering outside the courthouse. However,ex actly how to re spond was of ut most con cern. that this was not to be an uncomplicated repeti- tion of the Belton affair. The visit of the black For A.J. Smitherman, the editor of the Tulsa veterans had not at all been foreseen. Shocked,Star, there was no question whatsoever that a and then outraged, some members of the mobdemonstration of resolve was necessary. Black began to go home to fetch their guns.99Tulsans needed to let the white mob know thatthey were determined to prevent this lynching Others, however, made a beeline for the Na-from taking place, by force of arms if neces- tional Guard Armory, at Sixth and Norfolk,sary. Others, including a number of war veter- where they intended to gain access to the riflesans as well as various local leaders, the most and ammunition stored inside. Major James A.prominent being hotel owner J.B. Stradford, Bell, an officer with the local National Guardvigorously agreed. Moreover, when Dr. units — “B” Company, the Service Company, and the San i tary De tach ment, all of the Third In-Bridgewater had led a group of armed mendowntown to where three accused African fantry Regiment of the Oklahoma NationalAmerican men were being held only two years Guard — had already been notified of the trou-later, a rumored lynching did not take place. ble brewing down at the courthouse, and had“Come on boys,” Smitherman is said to have telephoned the local au thor i ties in or der to betterurged his audience, “let’s go downtown.” understand the overall situation. “I then went to the Armory and called up the Sheriff and asked Not everyone agreed with the plan of action. if there was any indications of trouble downO.W. Gurley, the owner of the Gurley Hotel, there,\" Bell later wrote, “The sheriff reportedseems to have argued for a more cautious ap- that there were some threats but did not believeproach. So, too, apparently, did Barney it would amount to any thing, that in any event heCleaver, a well-respected African American could protect his prisoner.” Bell also phoneddeputy sheriff, who had been trying to keep in Chief Gustafson, who reported, “Things were a little threatening.”100telephone contact with Sheriff McCullough,and therefore have something of a handle on Despite such vague answers, Major Bell tookthe ac tual con di tions down at the court house.97 the initiative and began to quietly instruct local guardsmen — who were scheduled to depart the Despite some entreaties to the contrary, at next day for their annual summer encampmentabout 9:00 p.m. a group of approximately — to report down at the armory in case theytwenty-five African American men decided to were needed that evening. Meanwhile, acast their lot not only with an endangered fel- 61

guardsman informed Bell that a mob of white judge had tried unsuccessfully to talk the crowdmen was attempting to break into the armory. into going home.102As Bell later reported: Police Chief John A. Gustafson later claimed Grabbing my pistol in one hand and my that he tried to talk the lynch mob into dispers- belt in the other I jumped out of the back ing. However, at no time that afternoon or eve- door and running down the west side of ning did he order a substantial number of Tulsa the Armory building I saw several men ap- policemen to appear, fully armed, at the court- parently pulling at the window grating. house. Gustafson, in his defense, would later Commanding these men to get off the lot claim that because there was a regular shift and seeing this command obeyed I went to change that very day, that only thirty-two offi- the front of the building near the south- cers were available for duty at eight o’clock on west corner where I saw a mob of white the evening of May 31. As subsequent testi- men about three or four hundred strong. I mony — as recorded in handwritten notes to a asked them what they wanted. One of post-riot investigation — later revealed, there them replied, “Rifles and ammunition,” I were apparently only “5 policemen on duty be- explained to them that they could not get tween courthouse & Brady hotel notwithstand- anything here. Someone shouted, “We ing lynching imminent.” Moreover, by 10:00 don’t know about that, we guess we can.\" I p.m., when the drama at the courthouse was ap- told them that we only had sufficient arms proaching its climax, Gustafson was no longer and ammunition for our own men and that at the scene, but had returned to his office at po- not one piece could go out of there without lice headquarters.103 orders from the Governor, and in the name of the law demanded that they disperse at In the city’s African American neighbor- once. They continued to press forward in a hoods, meanwhile, tension continued to mount threatening manner when with drawn pis- over the increasingly ugly situation down at the tol I again demanded that they disperse courthouse. Alerted to the potentially danger- and explained that the men in the Armory ous conditions, both school and church groups were armed with rifles loaded with ball am- broke up their evening activities early, while munition and that they would shoot parents and grandparents tried to reassure them- promptly to prevent any unauthorized per- selves that the trou ble would quickly blow over. son entering there. Down in Deep Greenwood, a large crowd of black men and women still kept their vigil out- “By maintaining a firm stand,\" Bell added, side of the offices of the Tulsa Star, awaiting“. . . this mob was dispersed.”101 word on the latest developmentsdowntown.104 Major Bell’s actions were both courageous Some of the men, however, decided that theyand effective but as the night wore on, similar could wait no longer. Hopping into cars, smallefforts would be in exceedingly short supply. groups of armed African American men beganWith each passing minute, Tulsa was a city to make brief forays into downtown, their gunsthat was quickly spinning out of control. visible to passersby. In addition to reconnais- sance, the primary intent of these trips appears By 9:30 p.m., the white mob outside the to have been to send a clear message to whitecourthouse had swollen to nearly Tulsans that these men were determined to pre-two-thousand persons. They blocked the side- vent, by force of arms if necessary, the lynchingwalks as well as the streets, and had spilled of Dick Rowland. Whether the whites who wit-over onto the front lawns of nearby homes. nessed these excursions understood this mes -There were women as well as men, youngsters sage is, however, an open question. Many,as well as adults, curiosity seekers as well as apparently, thought that they were instead wit-would-be lynchers. A handful of local leaders, nessing a “Negro uprising,” a conclusion thatincluding the Reverend Charles W. Kerr of the others would soon share.First Presbyterian Church as well as a local 62

In the midst of all of this activ ity, ru mors be- by a group of angry whites. As Dr. Miller latergan to circulate, particularly with regards to told an interviewer:what might or might not be happening down atthe courthouse. Possibly spurred on by a false I went over to see if I could help him as areport that whites were storming the court- doctor, but the crowd was gathering aroundhouse, moments after 10:00 p.m., a second him and wouldn’t even let the driver of the ambulance which just arrived to even pickcontingent of armed African American men, him up. I saw it was an impossible situationperhaps seventy-five in number this time, de- to control, that I could be of no help. Thecided to make a second visit to the courthouse. crowd was getting more and more belliger-Leaving Greenwood by automobile, they got ent. The Negro had been shot so manyout of their cars near Sixth and Main and times in his chest, and men from the onlook-marched, single file, to the courthouse steps. ers were slashing him with knives.Again, they offered their services to the author- Unable to help the dying man, Dr. Miller gotities to help protect Dick Rowland. Once into his car and drove home.109again, their offer was refused.105 A short while later, a second , deadlier, skir- mish broke out at Second and Cincinnati. No Then it happened. As the black men were longer directly involved with the fate of Dickleaving the courthouse for the second time, a Rowland, the beleaguered second contingent ofwhite man approached a tall African American African American men were now fighting for their own lives. Heavily outnumbered by theWorld War I veteran who was carrying an whites, and suffering some casualties along thearmy-issue revolver. “Nigger,” the white man way, most were apparently able, however, tosaid, “What are you doing with that pistol?” make it safely across the Frisco railroad tracks,“I’m going to use it if I need to,” replied theblack veteran. “No, you give it to me.” Like A typical member of the white mob. Not only did they set Af ri-hell I will.\" The white man tried to take the gun can-American homes and businesses on fire, but looted theiraway from the veteran, and a shot rang out.106 possessions as well (Courtesy Bob Hower).America’s worst race riot had begun. While the first shot fired at the courthousemay have been unintentional, those that fol-lowed were not. Almost immediately, mem-bers of the white mob — and possibly somelaw enforcement officers — opened fire on theAfrican American men, who returned volleysof their own. The initial gunplay lasted only afew seconds, but when it was over, an un-known number of people — perhaps as manyas a dozen — both black and white, lay dead orwounded.107 Outnumbered more than twenty-to-one, theblack men began a retreating fight toward theAfrican American district. With armed whitesin close pursuit, heavy gunfire erupted againalong Fourth Street, two blocks north of thecourthouse.108 Dr. George H. Miller, a white physician whowas working late that evening in his office atthe Unity Building at 21 W. Fourth Street,rushed outside after hear ing the gun shots, onlyto come upon a wounded black man, “shot andbleeding, writhing on the street,” surrounded 63

Following the outbreak of violence at the courthouse, crowds of angry whites took to the streets downtown. There, according towhite eye wit nesses, a num ber of blacks were killed in the ri ots early hours. And even though the fight ing soon moved north to wardGreenwood, groups of whites—in clud ing these at Main and Ar cher—were still roam ing the streets of down town the next morn ing(Courtesy Oklahoma HistoricalSociety).and into the more familiar environs of the Afri- Shortly thereafter, whites began breaking intocan American community.110 downtown sporting goods stores, pawnshops, and hardware stores, stealing — or “borrowing” as At the courthouse, the sudden and unex- some would later claim — guns and ammunition.pected turn of events had a jolting effect on the Dick Bardon’s store on First Street was particu-would-be lynch mob, and groups of angry, ven- larly hard hit as well as the J.W. MeGee Sportinggeance-seeking whites soon took the streets and Goods shop at 22 W. Sec ond Street, even though itsidewalks of downtown. “A great many of these was located literally across the street from police headquarters. The owner later testified that a Tulsapersons lining the sidewalks,” one white eye- po lice of fi cer helped to dole out the guns that werewitness later recalled, “were holding a rifle or taken from his store.113shotgun in one hand, and grasping the neck of aliquor bottle with the other. Some had pistols More bloodshed soon followed, as whites be-stuck into their belts.”111 gan gunning down any African Americans that they discovered downtown. William R. Some were about to become, at least tempo- Holway, a white engineer, was watching ararily, officers of the law. Shortly after the movie at the Rialto Theater when someone ranfighting had broken out at the courthouse, a into the theater, shouting “Nigger fight, niggerlarge number of whites - many of whom had fight.” As Holway later recalled:only a little while earlier been members of thewould-be lynch mob — gathered outside of Everybody left that theater on high, youpolice headquarters on Second Street. There, know. We went out the door and looked across the street, and there wasperhaps as many as five-hundred white men Younkman’s drug store with those big pil-and boys were sworn-in by police officers as lars. There were two big pillars at the en-“Special Deputies.” Some were provided with trance, and we got over behind them. Justbadges or ribbons indicating their new status. got there when a Negro ran south of the al-Many, it appears, also were given specific in- ley across the street, the minute his headstructions. According to Laurel G. Buck, a showed outside, somebody shot him.white bricklayer who was sworn-in as one ofthese ‘Special Deputies,\" a police officer “We stood there for about half-an-hourbluntly told him to “Get a gun and get a watching,\" Holway added, “which I shall nevernigger.”112 64

Groups of whites gath ered through out the city (Cour tesy West ern His tory Col lec tion, Uni versity of Oklahoma Libraries).forget. He wasn’t quite dead, but he was about for the aisle.” As he finished the sentence, ato die. He was the first man that I saw shot in roaring blast from a shotgun dropped thethat riot.”114 Negro man by the end of the orchestra pit.115 Not far away, at the Royal The ater – that wasshowing a movie called “One Man in a Mil - Not all of the victims of the violence thatlion” that evening — a similar drama played it- broke out downtown were white. Evidence sug-self out. Among the onlookers was a white gests that after the fighting broke out at theteenager named William “Choc” Phillips, who courthouse, carloads of black Tulsans may havelater became a well-known Tulsa police offi- exchanged gunfire with whites on streets down-cer. As described by Phillips in his unpub- town, possibly resulting in casualties on bothlished memoir of the riot: sides. At least one white man in an automobile was killed by a group of whites, who had mis- The mob action was set off when sev - taken him to be black.116 eral [white] men chased a Negro man down the alley in back of the theater and Around midnight, a small crowd of whites out onto Fourth Street where be saw the gathered — once again — outside of the court- stage door and dashed inside. Seeing the house, yelling “Bring the rope” and “Get the open door the Negro rushed in and hurried nigger.” But they did not rush the building, and forward in the darkness hunting a place to nothing happened. Because the truth of the mat- hide. ter was that, by then, most of Tulsa’s rioting whites no longer particularly cared about Dick Suddenly he was on the stage in front of Rowland anymore. They now had much bigger the picture screen and blinded by the things in mind. bright flickering light coming down from the operator’s booth in the balcony. After While darkness slowed the pace of the riot, shielding his eyes for a moment he re- sporadic fighting took place throughout the gained his vision enough to locate the nighttime hours of May 31 and June 1. The steps leading from the stage down past the heaviest occurred alongside the Frisco railroad orchestra pit to the aisle just as the pursu- tracks, one of the key dividing lines between ing men rushed the stage. One of them saw Tulsa’s black and white commercial districts. the Ne gro and yelled, “there he is, heading From approximately midnight until around 1:30 65

a.m., scores of blacks and whites exchanged During the nighttime hours of May 31 and June 1, groups ofgunfire across the Frisco yards. At one point armed whitesmade “drive-by” shootings in black residentialdur ing the fight ing, an in bound train re port edly neigh bor hoods, fir ing into Af ri can -Amer i can homes (Cour tesyarrived, its passengers forced to take cover on Greenwood Cultural Center).the floor as the shooting continued, rakingboth sides of the train. About 10:30 o’clock, I think it was, I had a call from the Adjt. General asking about A few carloads of whites also made brief ex- the situation. I explained that it lookedcursions into the African American district, pretty bad. He directed that we continue tofiring indiscriminately into houses as they use every effort to get the men in so that if aroared up and down streets lined with black call came we would be ready. I think it wasresidences. there were deliberate murders as only a few minutes after this, another callwell. As Walter White, who visited Tulsa im- from the Adjt. General directed that “B” Co.,mediately after the riot, later reported: the Sanitary Det. and the Service Co. be mo- bilized at once and render any assistance to Many are the sto ries of hor ror told to me the civil authorities we could in the mainte- - not by colored people - but by white resi- nance of law and order and the protection of dents. One was that of an aged col ored cou- life and property. I think this was about ple, saying their evening prayers before 10:40 o’clock and while talking to the Gen- retiring in their little home on Greenwood eral you appeared and assume command.123 Avenue. A mob broke into the house, shot both of the old people in the backs of their At approximately 11:00 p.m., perhaps as heads, blowing their brains out and spatter- many as fifty local National Guardsmen — ing them over the bed, pillaged the home, nearly all of whom had been contacted at their and then set fire to it.120 homes — had gathered at the armory on Sixth Street. Some were World War I veterans. It is It appears that the first fires set by whites in unclear whether any of the men had beenblack neighborhoods began at about 1:00 a.m. trained in riot control. Although various officialAfrican American homes and businesses along and unofficial manuals were available in 1921Archer were the earliest targets, and when an on the use of National Guard soldiers during ri-engine crew from the Tulsa Fire Department ots, it is uncertain whether the Tulsa units hadarrived and prepared to douse the flames, received any training in this area.124white rioters forced the firemen away at gun-point. By 4:00 a.m., more than two-dozen Another interesting aspect regarding theblack-owned businesses, including the Mid- guardsmen who gathered at the armory exists.way Hotel, had been torched.121 Not only were the Tulsa units of the National Guard exclusively white, but as the evening The nighttime hours of May 31, and June 1, wore on, it became increasingly clear that theyalso witnessed the first organized actionstakenby the Tulsa units of the National Guard. Whileevidence indicates that Sheriff McCulloughmay have requested local guard officers thatthey send men down to the courthouse ataround 9:30 p.m.,122 it was not until more thanan hour later — about the time that the fightingbroke out at the courthouset—hat the local Na-tional Guard units were specifically ordered totake action with regards to the riot. Accordingto the after action report later submitted byMajor James Bell to local National Guardcommander Lieutenant Colonel L.J.F.Rooney: 66

Some of the most intense fighting during the riot took place alongside the Frisco Railroad yards, as African-American defenderstried to keep the white rioters away from Greenwood. But when dawn broke on the morning of June 1, the black defenders weresimpley overwhelmed (CourtesyOklahomaHistoricalSociey).would not play an impartial role in the “main- the AmericanLegion.Tulsapoliceofficialsalsotenance of law and order.” Like many of their presented the guardsmen with a machine gun,white neighbors, a number of the local guards- which guard officers then had mounted on themen also came to conclude that the race riot back of a truck. This particular gun, possibly awas, in fact, a “Negro uprising,” a term used war trophy, it turned out, was in poor operatingthroughout their various after action reports. condition, and could only be fired one shell at aAt least one National Guard officer went even time.126further, using the term “enemy” in reference toAfrican Americans. Given the tenor of the Taking the machine gun along with them,times, it is hardly surprising that Tulsa’s about thirty guardsmen then headed north, andall-white National Guard might view black po si tioned them selves along De troit Av e nue be- tween Brady Street and Standpipe Hill, alongTulsans antagonistically. As the riot continuedto unfold, this also would prove to be far from one of the borders separating the city’s whiteirrelevant.125 and black neighborhoods. Their deployment was far from impartial, for the “skirmish line” Ini tially, the lo cal guards men were de ployed that the National Guard officers established wasdowntown. Sometime before midnight, one set-up facing - or soon would be — the Africandetachment was stationed in front of police American district. Moreover, the guardsmenheadquarters, where they blocked off Second also began rounding up black Tulsans, whomStreet. Guardsmen also led groups of armed they handed over — as prisoners — to the po-whites on “patrols” of downtown streets, an lice, and they also briefly exchanged fire withactivity that was later taken over by members gunmen to the east. Far from being utilized as aof the — similarly all-white — lo cal chap ter of neutral force, Tulsa’s local National Guard unit 67

North Tulsa burns while a white audience views the destruction from a safe distance (Courtesy Oklahoma HistoricalSociety).along Detroit Avenue were, even in the early “defending Greenwood,” he was one of scoreshours of the riot, being deployed in a manner of other African American residents who werewhich would eventuallysettheminopposition preparing to do exactly the same.129to the black community.127 Other black Tulsans, however, reached a dif- In Tulsa’s black neighborhoods, meanwhile, ferent conclusion on what was the best course ofword of what had happened at the courthouse action. Despite the fact that many of the city’swas soon followed by even more disturbing African American residents undoubtedly hopednews. A light-complexioned African Ameri- that daylight would bring an end to the violence,can man, who could “pass” for white, had min- others decided not to wait and find out. In thegled with the crowds of angry whites early hours of June 1, a steady stream of blackdowntown, where he overheard talk of invad- Tulsans began to leave the city, hoping to finding the African American district. Carefully safety in the surrounding countryside. “Early inmaking his way back home, the man then re- the eve ning when there was first talk of trou ble,”lated what he had heard to Seymour Williams, Irene Scofield later told the Black Dispatch, “Ia teacher at Booker T. Washington High and about forty others started out of the townSchool. Williams, who had served with the and walked to a little town about fifteen milesarmy in France, grabbed his service revolver away.” Others joining the exodus, however,and began to spread the news among his were not as fortunate. Billy Hudson, an Africanneighbors living just off of Standpipe Hill.128 American laborer who lived on Archer, hitched up his wagon as conditions grew worse, and set All along the southern edge of Greenwood, out — with his grandchildren by his side— forin fact, a great amount of activity was in prog- Nowata. He was killed by whites along theress. Alerted to the news of the violence that way.130had broken out downtown, garage and theater Adding to the confusion over what to do wasowner John Wesley Williams wasted no time the simple re al ity that, for most black Tulsans, itin preparing for the possibility of even greater was by no means clear as to what, exactly, wastrou ble. Loading his 30-30 ri fle and a re peat ing going on throughout the city. This was particu-shotgun, he positioned himself along a larly the case during the early hours of June 1.south-facing window of his family’s second Intermittent gunfire continued along the south-floor apartment at the corner of Greenwood ernmost edges of the African American districtand Archer. Later telling his son that he was 68

Street by street, block by block, the white invaders moved northward across Tulsa’s African-American dis trict, loot ing homes andset ting them on fire (Cour tesy De part ment of Spe cial Col lec tions, McFarlin Li brary, Uni versity of Tulsa).throughout the night, while down along Archer lor-made for rumors. Indeed, at about 2:30 a.m.,Street, the fires had not yet burned themselves the word spread quickly across downtown that aout. Yet, as far as anyone could determine, train carrying five-hundred armed blacks fromDick Rowland was still safe inside the court- Muskogee was due to arrive shortly at the Mid-house. There had been no lynching. land Valley Railway passenger station off Third At approximately 2:00 a.m., the fierce fight- Street. Scores of armed whites including a Na-ing along the Frisco railroad yards had ended. tional Guard patrol rushed to the depot, butThe white would-be invaders still south of the nothing happened. There was no such train.132tracks. As a result, some of Greenwood’s de-fenders not only concluded that they had Approximately 30 minutes later, reports“won” the fight, but also that the riot was over. reached the local National Guard officers that“Nine p.m. the trouble started,” A.J. African American gunman were firing on whiteSmitherman later wrote, “two a.m. the thing residences on Sunset Hill, north of Standpipewas done.”131 Hill. Moreover, it was said that a white woman had been shot and killed. Responding to the Nothing could have been further from the news, guardsmen including the crew manningtruth. the semi-defective machine gun were deployed along Sunset Hill, an area that overlooked black Regardless of whatever was, or was not, homes to the east.133happening down by the Frisco tracks, crowds In other white neighborhoods across Tulsa, aof angry, armed whites were still very much in different kind of activity was taking place, par-evidence on the streets and sidewalks of down- ticularly during the first hours following mid-town Tulsa. Stunned, and then outraged, by night. As word of what some would later call thewhat had occurred at the courthouse, they had “Negro uprising” began to spread across theonly begun to vent their anger. white community, groups of armed whites be- gan to gather at hastily-arranged meeting places, Like black Tulsans, whites were not exactly to discuss what to do next.134certain as to what exactly was happening in thecity, a situation that was, not surprisingly, tai- 69

White ri ot ers be gan set ting black homes and busi nesses on fire around mid night, largely along Ar cher Street. There were atroc i tiesas well. One el derly Af ri can-American cou ple, it was later re ported, was shot in the back of the head by whites as they knelt in prayerin side their home (Cour tesy Oklahoma His tor i cal So ci ety). For “Choc” Phillips and his other young of cars headed east. He later estimated, thecompanions, word of this activity came while crowd that had gathered was about six-hundredthey were sitting in an all-night restaurant. strong. Once again, men stood up on top of cars“Everybody,” they were told, “go to Fifteenth and began shouting instructions to the crowd.and Boulder.” Phillips wrote: “Men,” once man announced, “we are going in Many people were drifting out of the res- at daylight.” Another man declared that they taurant so we decided to go along and see would be having, right then and there, an ammu- what happened at the meeting place. nition exchange. “If any of you have more am- Driving south on Boulder we realized that munition than you need, or if what you have many trucks and automobileswereheaded doesn’t fit your gun, sing out,” he said. “Be for the same location, and near Fifteenth ready at daybreak,” another man insisted, claim- Street people had abandoned their vehi- ing that meetings like this were taking place all cles because the streets and intersections over town. “Noth ing can stop us,” he added, “for were filled to capacity. We left the car there will be thousands of others going in at the more than a block away and began walk- same time.”136 ing toward the crowded intersection. There were already three or four hundred The Tulsa police also appear to have been people there and more arriving when we scattered all over town. No doubt responding to walked up. rumors that armed blacks were supposedly en route to Tulsa from various towns across eastern Once there, a man stood up on top of a tour- Oklahoma, Tulsa police officers had been dis-ing car and announced, “We have decided to patched to guard various roads leading into thego out to Second and Lewis Streets and join the city. Indeed, no less than a half-dozen officerscrowd that is meeting there.”135 that by Chief Gustafson’s subsequent calcula- tions, was nearly one-fifth of the regularly Returning to their automobiles, Phillips and scheduled available police force that evening,his companions blended in with the long line had ap par ently been posted at the ice plant over- 70

Sweeping past the black business district, now aflame, the and at 1:46 a.m., the needed telegram arrived atwhite rioters entered the heart of Tulsa’s African-American the state capital.138 It read:residential area (Courtesy Oklahoma HistoricalSociety). WESTERN UNION TELEGRAMlooking the Eleventh Street bridge. Some local Tulsa, Oklaguardsmen also were deployed to stand guard June l,1921at various public works as well including thecity water works along the Sand Springs road, Govemor J.B.A. Robertson Oklahomaand the Pub lic Ser vice Com pany’s power plant City, Oklahoma. Race riot developed here.off First Street.137 Several killed. Unable handle situation. Re- quest that National Guard forces be sent by Word of what was happening in Tulsa was special train. Situation serious.also making its way to state officials inOklahoma City. At 10:14 p.m., Adjutant Gen- Jno. A. Gustaftson,eral Charles F. Barrett, the commandant of the Chief of PoliceOklahoma Na tional Guard, had re ceived a long Wm. McCullough,distance telephone call from Major Byron SheriffKirkpatrick, a Tulsa guard officer, advising V.W. Biddisonhim of the worsening conditions in Tulsa. District JudgeKirkpatrick phoned again at 12:35 a.m. At thatpoint he was instructed by Governor J.B.A. Twenty-nine minutes later, at 2:15 a.m., Ma-Robertson to prepare and send a signed tele- jor Kirkpatrick spoke again by phone with Ad-gram, as required by Oklahoma state law, by jutant General Barrett, who informed him thatthe chief of police, the county sheriff, and a lo- the governor had authorized the calling out ofcal judge, requesting that state troops be sent the state troops. A special train, carrying ap-to Tulsa. Kirkpatrick, however, ran into some proximately one-hundred National Guard sol -problems as he tried to collect the necessary diers would leave Oklahoma City, bound forsignatures, particularly that of Sheriff Tulsa, at 5:00 a.m. that morning.140McCullough, who was still barricaded with hismen and Dick Rowland on the top floor of the Tulsa’s lon gest night would fi nally be end ing,courthouse. However, Kirkpatrick persevered, but its longest day would have only begun. In the pre-dawn hours of June l, thousands of armed whites had gathered in three main clus- ters along the northern fringes of downtown, op- posite Greenwood. One group had assembled behind the Frisco freight depot, while another waited nearby at the Frisco and Santa Fe passen- ger station. Four blocks to the north, a third crowd was clustered at the Katy passenger de- pot. While it is unclear how many people were in each group, some contemporary observerses- timated the total number of armed whites who had gathered as high as five or ten thousand.141 Smaller bands of whites also had been active. One group hauled a machine gun to the top of the Middle States Milling Company’s grain ele- vator off of First Street, and set it up to fire to the north of Greenwood Avenue.142 Shortly before daybreak, five white men in a green Franklin automobile pulled up alongside the crowd of whites who were massed behind the Frisco freight depot. “What the hell are you waitin’ on?,” one of the men hollered, “let’s go get 71

The loot ing and burn ing of Af ri can -Amer i can homes was indiscriminate, both poor and wealthy fam i lies losttheir homes (Courtesy Greenwood Cultural Center).‘em.” But the crowd would not budge, and the Woods running with both hands in the airmen in the car set off alone toward Deep and their 3-month-old baby in one hand andGreenwood. Their bodies, and the bul- three brutes behind him with guns.let-ridden Franklin, were later seen in the mid-dle of Archer Street, near Frankfort.143 “She said her legs gave way from under her,” the letter continued, “and she had to crawl about Across the tracks in Greenwood, consider- the room, taking things from her closet, puttingable activity also had been taking place. While them in her trunk, for she thought if anythingsome black Tulsans prepared themselves to happened she’d have her trunk packed, and be-face the onslaught, others decided that it was fore she got everything in they heard footstepstime to go. “About this time officers Pack and on their steps and there were six out there andLewis pushed up to us and said it would not be they ordered Mr. Smart to march, hands up, outsafe for us to remain any longer,” recalled Mrs. of the house.145Dimple Bush, who was with her husband at theRed Wing Hotel. “So,” she added, “We rushed Several eyewitnesses later recalled that whenout and found a taxi which took us straight dawn came at 5:08 a.m. that morning, an un-north on Greenwood.”144 usual whistle or siren sounded, perhaps as a sig- nal for the mass assault on Greenwood to begin. Not far away, along North Elgin, Julia Duff, Although the source of this whistle or siren isa teacher at Booker T. Washington High still unknown, moments later, the white mobsSchool, faced a similar crisis. Awakened by made their move. While the machine gun in theloud voices outside of her rented room shortly grain elevator opened fire, crowds of armedbefore dawn, the young teacher was soon whites poured across the Frisco tracks, headednearly overcome with fear. As later described straight for the African American commercialin a letter published in the ChicagoDefender: district.146 As later de scribed by one eye wit ness: Mrs. S. came into her room and told her With wild frenzied shouts, men began to dress-there was something wrong for pouring from behind the freight depot and soldiers were all around, and she looked the long string of boxcars and evidently out the window and saw them driving the from behind the piles of oil well easing men out of the houses on Detroit. Saw Mr. 72

which was at the other end and on the machine gun located in the granary and north side of the building. From every from men who were quickly surrounding place of shelter up and down the tracks our district. Seeing that they were fighting came screaming, shouting men to join in at a dis ad van tage, our men had taken shel ter the rush toward the Negro section. Min- in the buildings and in other places out of gled with the shouting were a few re- sight of the enemy. When my daughter, bel-yells and Indian gobblings as the great Florence Mary, and I ran into the street, it wave of humanity rushed forward totally was vacant for a block or more. Someone absorbed in thoughts of destruction.147 called to me to “Get out of the street with that child or you both will be killed.” I felt Meanwhile, over at the Katy depot, the other that it was suicide to remain in the building,crowd of armed whites also moved forward. for it would surely be destroyed and deathHeading east, they were soon joined by dozens in the street was preferred, for we expectedof others in automobiles, driving along Brady to be shot down at any moment. So weand Cameron Streets. As one unidentified ob- placed our trust in God, our Heavenly Fa-server later told reporter Mary Parrish, “Tues- ther, who seeth and knoweth all things, andday night, May 31, was the riot, and ran out of Greenwood in the hope of reach-Wednesday morning, by daybreak, was the in- ing a friend’s home who lived over thevasion.”148 Standpipe Hill in Greenwood Addition.150 While black Tulsans fought hard to protect For Dimple Bush, the flight from Greenwoodtheir homes and businesses, the sheer numeri- had bordered upon the indescribable. “It wascal advantage of the invading whites soon just dawn; the machine guns were sweeping theproved to be overwhelming. After a valiant, valley with their murderous fire and my heartnight long effort, John Wesley Williams had to was filled with dread as we sped along,” she re-flee from his family’s apartment once whites called, “Old women and men, children werebegan to riddle the building with gunfire. running and screaming everywhere.”151Squeezing off a few final rounds a little furtherup Greenwood Avenue, Williams then faced Soon, however, new perils developed. As thethe inevitable, and began walking north along mobs of armed whites rushed into the southernthe Midland Valley tracks, leaving his home end of the African American district, airplanesand businesses behind.149 — manned by whites — also appeared over- head. As Dr. R.T. Bridgewater, a well-respected He was hardly alone. Not far away, in her black Tulsa physician, later described what hap-apartment in the Woods Building at 105 N. pened:Greenwood, Mary E. Jones Parrish and heryoung daughter Florence Mary had sat up Shortly after we left a whistle blew. Themuch of the night, uncertain of what to do. shots rang from a machine gun located on“Finally,” she later wrote, Standpipe Hill near my residence and aeroplanes began to fly over us, in some in- My friend, Mrs. Jones, called her hus - stances very low to the ground. A cry was band, who was trying to take a little rest. heard from the women saying, “Look out They decided to try to make for a place of for the aeroplanes, they are shooting upon safety, so called to me that they were leav- us.”152 ing. By this time the enemy was close upon us, so they ran out of the south door, Numerous other eyewitnesses —both black which led out onto Ar cher Street, and went and white — confirm the presence of an un- east toward Lansing. I took my little girl, known number of airplanes flying over Green- Florence Mary, by the hand and fled out of wood during the early daylight hours of June 1. the west door on Greenwood. I did not While certain other assertions made over the take time to get a hat for myself or Baby, years such as that the planes dropped streams of but started out north on Greenwood, run- “liquid fire” on top of African American homes ning amidst showers of bullets from the 73

and busi nesses ap pear to have been tech no log- him, and they told his wife (old, too) to go,ically improbable, particularly during the early but she did n’t want to leave him, and he told1920s, there is little doubt but that some of the her to go on anyway. As she left one of theoccupants of the airplanes fired upon black damn dogs shot the old man and then theyTulsans with pistols and rifles. Moreover, fired the house.156there is ev i dence, to sug gest that men in at leastone airplane dropped some form of explo- There were near-atrocities as well. Aftersives, probably sticks of dynamite, upon a armed whites had led his mother away at gun-group of African American refugees as they point, five-year-old George Monroe was hidingwere fleeing the city.153 beneath his parents’ bed with his two older sis- ters and his one older brother when white men Gunfire soon erupted along the western sud denly en tered the room. Af ter ri fling throughboundary of the black com mu nity. Sharp fight- the dresser, the men set the curtains on fire. Asing broke out along Standpipe Hill, where the the men began to leave, one of them stepped onlocal guardsmen positioned there traded fire George’s hand. George started to cry out, but hiswith armed African Americans, who had set up sister Lottie threw her hand over his mouth, pre-defensive lines off Elgin and Elgin Place. vent ing their dis cov ery. A few min utes later, theNearby, on Sunset Hill, the white guardsmen children were able to escape from their homeopened fire on the black neighborhood to the before it burst into flame.157east, using both their standard issuethirty-caliber 1906 Springfield rifles as well as Some of the fires in Greenwood appear tothe semi-defective machine gun provided to have been set by whites wearing khaki uni-them by the Tulsa police.154 forms. The actual identity of these men remains unclear. Most likely, they were World War I As the waves of white rioters descended veterans who had donned their old army uni -upon the African American district, a deadly forms when the riot erupted, rather than an offi-pattern soon emerged. First, the armed whites cially organized group.159broke into the black homes and businesses,forcing the occupants out into the street, where They were not, however, the only uniformedthey were led away at gunpoint to one of a whites observed setting fires in Tulsa’s Africangrowing number of internment centers. Any- American neighborhoods. According to blackone who resisted was shot. Moreover, African Deputy Sher iff V.B. Bostic, a white Tulsa po liceAmerican men in homes where firearms were officer “drove him and his wife from his home,”discovered met the same fate. Next, the whites and then “poured oil on the floor and set alooted the homes and businesses, pocketing lighted match to it.”159small items, and hauling away larger items ei-ther on foot or by car or truck. Finally, the Deputy Sheriff Bostic was not, however, thewhite rioters then set the homes and other only eyewitness to report acts of criminal mis-buildings on fire, using torches and oil-soaked conduct by Tulsa police officers during therags. House by house, block by block, the wall course of the riot. According to one white eye-of flame crept northward, engulfing the city’s witness, a “uniformed [white] policeman on Eastblack neighborhoods.155 Second Street went home, changed his uniform to plain clothes, and went to the Ne gro dis trict and Atrocities occurred along the way. Accord- led a bunch of whites into Negro, houses, someing to one account, published ten days after the of the bunch pilfering, never offered to protectriot in a Chicago newspaper, men, women or children, or property.” This par- ticular account was buttressed by the testimony Another cruel instance was when they of an African American witness, who reported [white rioters] went to the home of an old that he had seen the same officer in question “on couple and the old man, 80 years old, was the morning of the riot, June 1, kicking in doors paralyzed and sat in a chair and they told of Negro homes, and assisting in the destruction him to march and he told them he was crip- of property.”160 pled, but he’d go if someone would take 74

Dedicated only weeks before the riot, the Mount Zion Baptist Church was a great source of pride for many blackTulsans. But after a prolonged battle, the white rioters burned it—as well as more than a half dozen other AfricanAmerican churches—to the ground (Courtesy Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University ofTulsa). Despite the daunting odds against them, a canvas cover then lay it on the bed of theblack Tulsans valiantly fought back. African truck. They rolled up the belts with theAmerican riflemen had positioned themselves empty shell casings, put away those thatin the belfry of the newly-built Mount Zion were still unused, and in what seemed lessBaptist Church, whose commanding view of than ten minutes from the time the truckthe area just below Standpipe Hill allowed was parked at the location, drove away.them to temporarily stem the tide of the whiteinvasion. When white rioters set up a machine While standing on the high ground wheregun-probably the same weapon that had been the machine gun had been firing, weused earlier that morning at the grain elevator, watched the activity below for a few min-and unleashed its deadly fire on the church utes. Most of the houses were beginning tobelfry, the black defenders were quickly over- burn and smoke ascended slowly in to thewhelmed. As “Choc” Phillips later described air while people flitted around as busy aswhat happened: bees down there. From the number that ran in and out of the houses and the church, In a couple of minutes pieces of brick there had evidently been a couple of hun- started falling, then whole bricks began dred who remained behind when the mob tumbling from the narrow slits in the cu- bypassed the area. pola. Within five or six minutes the open- ings were large jagged holes with so many A short while later, Mount Zion was bricks flying from that side of the cupola torched.161 wall that it seemed ready to fall. Attempts by black Tulsans to defend their The men stopped firing the machine homes and property were undercut by the ac- gun and almostimmediately the houses on tions of both the Tulsa police and the local Na- the outer rim of the area that had been pro- tional Guard units, who, rather than focus on tected by the snipers, became victims of disarming and arresting the white rioters, took the arsonists. We watched the men take steps that led to the eventual imprisonment of the ma chine gun from the tri pod, wrap it in practically all of the city’s African American citizens. Guardsmen deployed on Standpipe 75

Hill made at least one eastward march in the four men searched me. They told me to lineearly hours of June 1, rounding up African up in the street. I requested them to let meAmericans along the way, before they were get my hat and best shoes, but they refusedfired upon, apparently by whites as well as and abusively ordered me to line up. Theyblacks, near Greenwood Avenue. The guards- re fused to let one of the men put on any kindmen then marched to Sunset Hill, where they of shoes. After lining up some 30 or 40 of ushanded over their black prisoners to local po- men, they ran us through the streets to Con-lice officers.162 vention Hall, forcing us to keep our hands in the air all the while. While we were run- An arrest by a white officer was not a guar- ning, some of the ruffians would shoot atantee of safety for black Tulsans. Accordingto our heels and swore at those who had diffi-Thomas Higgins, a white resident of Wichita, culty keeping up. They actually drove a carKansas who happened to be visiting Tulsa into the bunch and knocked down two orwhen the riot broke out, “I saw men of my own three men.165race, sworn officers, on three occasions searchNegroes while their hands were up, and not Harold M. Parker, a white bookkeeper for thefinding weapons, extracted what money they Oklahoma Producing and Refining Corporationfound on them. If the Negro protested, he was at the time of the riot, later corroborated howshot.”163 armed whites sometimes shot at the heels of their black prisoners. “Sometimes they missed White civilians also took black prisoners. and shot their legs,” Parker recalled a half cen-When the invasion began, Carrie Kinlaw, an tury later, “It was sheer cruelty coming out.”166African American woman who lived out to -ward the Section Line, had to run toward the The most infamous incident involving whitefighting in order to help her sisters retrieve civilians imprisoning African Americans wastheir invalid mother. Reaching the elderly that which concerned Dr. A.C. Jackson, Tulsa’swoman in a “rain of bullets,” Kinlaw later noted black surgeon. Despite the increasingwrote: gunfire, Dr. Jackson had decided to remain in- side of his handsome home at 523 N. Detroit, My sisters and I gathered her up, placed along the shoul der of Standpipe Hill. But when a her on a cot, and three of us carried the cot group of armed whites arrived on his front lawn, and the other one carried a bundle of Jackson apparently walked out the side door of clothes; thus we carried Mother about six his home with his hands up, saying, “Here I am blocks, with bullets falling on all sides. boys, don’t shoot.”167 What happened next was About six squads of rioters overtook us, later recounted by John A. Oliphant, a white at- asked for men and guns, made us hold up torney who lived nearby, in testimony he pro- our hands. vided after the riot: Not all of her captors, however, were adults. Q. About what time in the morning did you“There were boys in that bunch,” she added, say it was Dr. Jackson was shot?“from about 10 years upward, all armed withguns.”164 A. Right close to eight o’clock, between seven thirty and eight o’clock. Black Tulsans also faced dangers while inthe custody of white civilians. James T. West a Q. Dr. Jackson was a Negro?teacher at Booker T. Washington High A. Yes, sir.School, was arrested by whites at his home on Q. And he was coming toward you and theseEaston Street that morning. “Some men ap- other men at the time he was shot?peared with drawn guns and ordered all of the A. Yes, Sir, coming right between his house,men out of the house,” he recalled immedi- right in his yard be tween his home and the houseately after the riot, below him. Q. What did these men say at the time he was I went out immediately. They ordered shot? me to raise my hands, after which three or 76

A. They didn’t say anything but they pulled While the white rioters continued their assault upon the Afri-down on him; I kept begging him not to shoot can-American com mu nity, black Tulsans soon found them selveshim, I held him a good bit and I thought he sub ject to ar rest by Tulsa of fi cials and “spe cial dep u ties”(Cour-wouldn’t shoot but he shot him twice and the tesy Bob Hower).other fellow on the other side-and he fell-shothim and broke his leg. In the wake of the invasion came a wall of flame, steadily moving northward. “Is the Q. One man shot him twice? whole world on fire?” asked a young playmate A. Yes, sir, this is my recollection now. of eight-year-old Kinney Booker, who was flee- Q. Then another one shot him through the ing with his family from their home on Northleg? Frankfort. Not far away, a fiery horror was un- A. Yes, I didn’t look at that fellow. derway. As later recounted by Walter White in Q. These same men that shot him carried The Nation magazine:him to the hospital? A. No, they didn’t. One story was told to me by an eyewit- Q. What did they do? ness of five colored men trapped in a burn- A. I have never seen them after that, I don’t ing house. Four burned to death. A fifthknow a thing about what became of them. attempted to flee, was shot to death as he Dr. Jackson died of his wounds later that emerged from the burn ing struc ture, and hisday.168 body was thrown back into the flames. Not all black Tulsans, however, counte-nanced surrender. In the final burst of fighting Humans, however, were not the only victimsoff of Standpipe Hill that morning, a deadly of the conflagration. More than a few blackfirefight erupted at the site of an old clay pit, Tulsans kept pigs and chickens in their back -where several African American defenders yards in those days. They too perished in thewere said to have gone to their deaths fighting flames, as did some dogs and other familyoff the white invaders. Stories also have been pets.171passed down over the years regarding the ex-ploits of Peg Leg Taylor, a legendary black de- Efforts made by the Tulsa Fire Department tofender who is said to have singlehandedly halt the burn ing were of lit tle ef fect. The ear li estfought off more than a dozen white rioters. attempts by firemen to put out fires in the Afri-Along the northern face of Sunset Hill, thewhite guardsmen posted there found them-selves, at least for a while, under attack.169 Black Tulsa, it was clear, was not goingwithout a fight. Despite their gallant effort, however,Tulsa’s African American minority was sim-ply outgunned and outnumbered. As the whitemobs continued to move northward, into theheart of the black residential district, some ofthe worst violence of the riot appears to havetaken place. “Negro men, women and childrenwere killed in great numbers as they ran, tryingto flee to safety,” one unidentified informantlater told Mary E. Parrish, “. . . the most horri-ble scenes of this oc cur rence was to see womendragging their children while running tosafety, and the dirty white rascalsfiringatthemas they ran.”170 77

While only the au thor i ties de tained a hand ful of white ri ot ers, most black Tulsans soon found them selves held un der guard. Even inthe pre dom i nantly white neigh bor hoods on the city’s south side, Af ri can-American do mes tic work ers were rounded up and taken tothe various intern ment cen ters (Cour tesy De part ment of Spe cial Col lec tions, McFarlin Library, Uni ver sity of Tulsa).can American district were halted, at gunpoint, the hill to the northeast among theby crowds of white rioters.Thereafter, what ef- out-buildings of the Negro settlementforts that were made appear to have been di- which stops at the foot of the hill. Afterrected towards keeping the flames away from about 20 minutes “fire at will” at the armednearby white neighborhoods. This may also groups of blacks the latter began fallinghave played a role in how another new black back to the northeast, thus getting goodchurch, the First Baptist Church located at Ar- cover among the frame buildings of the Ne-cher and Jackson, was spared. “Yonder is a gro settlement. Immediately we moved for-nigger church, why ain’t they burning it?” a ward, “B” Company advancing directlywhite woman allegedly asked on the morning north and the Service company in aof June 1. Because, she was told, “It’s in a north-easterly direction.173white district.”172 More remarkable, the guardsmen came upon As the morning wore on, and the fighting a group of African Americans barricaded insidemoved northward across Greenwood, there a store, who were attempting to hold off a mobwas a startling new development. On the heels of armed white rioter’s. Rather than attempt toof their brief gun battle with African American get the white invaders and the black defenders toriflemen to their north, the guardsmen who disengage, the guardsmen joined in on the at -were positioned along the crest of Sunset Hill tack. Again, as de scribed by Cap tain McCuen:then joined in the invasion of black Tulsa, withone detachment heading north, the other to the At the northeast corner of the Negro set-northeast. As later described by Captain John tlement 10 or more Negroes barricadedW. McCuen in the after action report he sub- themselves in a concrete store and dwellingmitted to the commander of Tulsa’s National and a stiff fight ensued between these Ne-Guard units: groes on one side and guardsmen and civil- ians on the other. Several whites and blacks We advanced to the crest of Sunset Hill were wounded and killed at this point. We in skirmish line and then a little further captured, arrested and disarmed a great north to the military crest of the hill where many Ne gro men in this set tle ment and then our men were ordered to lie down because sent them under guard to the convention of the intense fire of the blacks who had hall and other points where they were being formed a good skirmish line at the foot of concentrated.174 78

Whites detained fleeing African Americans as well as those that stayed near their homes and businesses (CourtesyDepartmentofSpecial Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa). No longer remotely impartial, the men of American refugees were apparently hidden by“B” Company, Third Infantry, Oklahoma Na- the Phelpses during the daylight hours.177tional Guard, had now joined in on the assaulton black Tulsa. Other white Tulsans also hid blacks, or di - rectly confronted the white rioters. Mary Jo As African Americans fled the city, new Erhardt, a young stenographer who roomed atdangers sometimes appeared. Mary Parrish the Y.W.C.A. Building at Fifth and Cheyenne, did both. After a sleepless night, punctuated bylater reported that as the group of refugees she the sounds of gunfire, Erhardt arose early on thewas with “had traveled many miles into the morning of June 1. Heading downstairs, shecountry and were turning to find our way to then heard a voice she recognized as belongingClaremore,” they were warned to stay clear of to the African American porter who workeda nearby town, where whites were “treating our there. “Miss Mary! Oh, Miss Mary!” he said,people awfully mean as they passed “Let me in quick.” Armed whites, he told her,through.”175 Similar stories have persisted for were chasing him. Quickly secreting the man in-decades. side the building’s walk-in refrigerator, Erhardt later recalled, Not all white Tulsans, however, shared theracial views of the white rioters. Mary Korte, a Hardly had I hidden him behind the beefwhite maid who worked for a wealthy Tulsa carcasses and returned to the hall doorfamily, hid African American refugees at her when a loud pounding at the service en-fam ily’s farm east of the city.176 Along the road trance drew me there. A large man was try-to Sand Springs, a white couple named Merrill ing to open the door, fortunately securelyand Ruth Phelps hid and fed black riot victims locked, and there on the stoop stood threein the basement of their home for days. The very rough-looking middle-aged whitePhelps home, which still stands, became some- men, each point ing a re volver in my gen eralthing of a “safe house” for black Tulsans who direction!had man aged not to be im pris oned by the whiteauthorities. Traveling through the woods and “What do you want?” I asked sharply.along creek beds at night, dozens of African Strangely, those guns frightened me not at 79

The Zarrow Family. The parents of Jack andHenry Zarrow, founder of Sooner Pipeling,owned a grocery store in the riot-torn area. Itwas spared because they were white. TheZarrow’s hid many of the flee ing blacks in theirbusiness (Courtesy Greenwood Cultural Cen-ter). all. I was so angry I could have torn those rican American children, who had evidently ruffians apart-three armed white men chas- been separated from their parents, walking ing one lone, harmless Negro. I cannot re- along the street. Suddenly, an airplane appeared call in all my life feeling hatred toward on the horizon, bearing down on the two fright- any person, until then. Apparently my feel- ened youngsters. Morales ran out into the street, ings did not show, for one answered, and scooped the little ones into her arms, and “Where did he go?” “Where did WHO out of danger. go?” I responded. A group of armed whites later demanded that “That nigger,\" one demanded, “did you Morales hand the two terrified children over to let him in here?” them. “In her English, she told them ‘No’,” her daughter Gloria Lough, later recalled. “Some- “Mister,” I said, “I’m not letting how or other,\" she added, “they didn’t shoot ANYBODY in here!,” which was per- her.\" The youngsters were safe.179 fectly true. I had already let in all I in- tended. As the battle for black Tulsa continued to rage, it soon became evident, even in neighbor- “It was at least ten minutes before I felt hoods far removed from the fighting, that on secure enough to release Jack,” Erhardt June 1, 1921, there would be very littlebusiness added, “He was nearly frozen, dressed as usual in the city of Tulsa. When Guy Ashby, a thinly as he was for the hot summer night, young white employee at Cooper’s Grocery on but he was ALIVE!”178 Fourteenth Street, showed up for work that morning, his boss was on his way out the door. Some whites, in their efforts to protect black “The boss told me there would be no work thatTulsans from harm put themselves at risk. day as he was declaring it ‘Nigger Day’ and heNone, perhaps, more so than a young Hispanic was going hunting niggers,” Ashby later re-woman named Maria Morales Gutierrez. A re-cent immigrant from Mexico, she and her hus- membered, “He took a rifle and told me to lockband were living, at the time of the riot, in a up the store and go home.”180small house off Peoria Avenue, near Independ-ence Street. Hearing a great deal of noise and Downtown, normal ac tiv i ties were even morecommotion on the morning of June 1, Morales in disarray, as business owners found them-ventured outside, where she saw two small Af- selves shorthanded, and crowds of onlookers took to the streets, or climbed up on rooftops, to stare at the great clouds of smoke billowing over 80

Any flee ing fam i lies were de nied free dom by whites po si tioned The riot was felt along the southern edge ofon es cape routes (Cour tesy De part ment of Spe cial Col lec tions, the city as well, particularly in the well-to-doMcFarlin Li brary, Uni ver sity of Tulsa). white neighborhoods off of 21st Street, as car- loads of armed white vigilantes went door tothe north end of town. At the all-white Central door, rounding up live-in African AmericanHigh School, several male students bolted cooks, maids, and butlers at gunpoint, and thenfrom class when gunfire was heard nearby. hauling them off toward downtown. A numberOne of the students later recalled, “struck out of white homeowners, however, fearing for thefor the riot area.” Along the way, he added, safety of their black em ploy ees, stood in the waythey were met by a white man who handed of this forced evacuation. When Charles andthem a new rifle and a box of shells. “You can Amy Arnold refused to hand over their house-have it,” the man told them, “I’m going home keeper, cries of being “nigger lovers” were fol-and going to bed.”181 lowed by a brick being thrown through their front window.182 Even out in the countryside, miles from town, people knew that something was happening in Tulsa. Since daybreak, huge columns of black smoke had been rising up, hundreds of feet into the air, over the north end of the city. The smoke was still there, some four hours later, when the State Troops finally arrived in town. The special train from Oklahoma City, carry- ing Adjutant General Charles F. Barrett and theShortly af ter the out break of vi o lence, the Tulsa po lice pre sented the lo cal Na tional Guards men with a ma chine gun—only it provedto be de fec tive. A sec ond ma chine gun that was in the hands of white ci vil ians, how ever, was used to con sid er able ef fect dur ing the at-tack on Greenwood (Courtesy De part ment of Spe cial Col lec tions, McFarlin Li brary, Uni ver sity of Tulsa). 81

As more and more Af ri can Amer i cans were de tained the “pro tec tive cus tody” al ter nate holding lo ca tions had to be used includingMcNulty base ball Park (De part ment of Spe cial Col lec tions, McFarlin Li brary, Uni ver sity of Tulsa).approximately 109 soldiers and officers under supply dealer who was visiting Tulsa at the timehis command, pulled into Tulsa’s bul- of the riot. “This law less loot ing con tin ued fromlet-scarred Frisco and Santa Fe passenger de- about 9 until 11 o’clock,” he added, “when mar-pot at approximately 9:15 a.m. on the morning tial law prevented further spoilation.”184of June 1, 1921. The soldiers, who arrived There were ongoing horrors as well. “Onearmed and in uniform, were all-members of an Negro was dragged behind an automobile,Oklahoma City based National Guard unit. In with a rope around his neck, through the busi-Tulsa, they soon became known, by both ness district,” reported the Tulsa World in itsblacks and whites, as the “State Troops,” a “Second Extra” edition on the morning of Juneterm which had the intrinsic benefit of helping 1.\" Decades later, both former Tulsa mayorto dis tin guish the out-of-towners from the lo cal L.C. Clark, and E.W. “Gene” Maxey of theNational Guard units. Like the local guards- Tulsa County Sheriff’s Department, con-men, the State Troops were also all-white.183 firmed this report. “About 8:00 a.m. on the morning of June 1, 1921, Maxey told riot By the time the State Troops arrived,Tulsa’s chronicler Ruth Avery,devastating racial conflagration was alreadyten-and-one-half hours old. Dozens of blacks I was downtown with a friend when theyand whites had been killed, while the wards of killed that good, old, colored man that was blind. He had amputated legs. His body wasthe city’s four remaining hospitals — the attached at the hips to a small wooden plat-all-black Frissell Memorial Hospital had al- form with wheels. One leg stub was longerready been burned to the ground by white riot- than the other, and hung slightly over theers — were filled with the wounded. Most of edge of the platform, dragging along thethe city’s African American district had al- street. He scooted his body around by shov-ready been torched, while looting continued in ing and pushing with his hands coveredthose black homes and businesses that were with baseball catcher mitts. He supportedstill standing. “One very bad thing was the himself by selling pencils to passersby, orway whites delved into the personal belong- accepting their donations for his singing ofings of the Negroes, throwing their posses- songs.sions from trunks and otherwise damagingthem,” reported M.J. White, a Denver dental 82

The street car tracks ran north and south dragging him behind the car in broad daylight on Main Street, and the tracks were laid on on June 1, right through the center of town on pretty rough bricks. The fellow that was Main Street.”185 driving the car I knew—an outlaw and a bootlegger. But I won’t give his name be- When the State Troops arrived in Tulsa, the cause he has some folks here. There were majority of the city’s black citizenry had either two or three people with him. They got fled to the countryside, or were being held — al- that old col ored man that had been here for legedly for their own protection — against their years. He was helpless. He’d carry an old will in one of a handful of hastily set-up intern- tin cup, sing, and mooched for money. ment centers, including Convention Hall, the One of them thuggy, white people had a fairgrounds, and McNulty baseball park. There new car, so he went to the depot, and came were still, however, some pockets of armed back up Main Street between First and Sec- black resistance to the remnants of the white in- ond Streets. We were on the east side of vasion, especially along the northern reaches of the street. These white thugs had roped the AfricanAmericandistrict.Incertain border- this colored man on the longer stump of line areas such as the residential neighborhood his one leg, and were dragging him behind that lay just to the east of the Santa Fe tracks the car up Main Street. He was hollering. where the Jim Crow line ran right down the cen- His head was being bashed in, bouncing ter of the street, a number of African American on the steel rails and bricks. homes had escaped destruction, sometimes through the efforts of sympathetic white neigh- “They went on all the speed that the car bors.186could make,” Maxey added, “. . . a new car,with the top down, and 3 or 4 of them in it, Upon their arrival in Tulsa, the State Troops apparently did not proceed immediately to where the fighting was still in progress, al-Remarkably, a handful of Tulsa’s finest African-American homes were still standing when the State Troops arrived in town. Butabout one-hour later, a small group of white men were seen en ter ing the houses, and set ting them on fire. By the time the State Troopsmarched up Standpipe Hill, it was too late, the homes were gone (CourtesyTulsaHistoricalSociety). 83

though it is uncertain how long this delay policemen I will protect all this propertylasted. The reasons for this seeming hold-up and save a million dollars worth of stuffappear to be largely due to the fact that certain they were burning down and looting.” Isteps needed to be fulfilled — either through asked the fire department for the fire depart-pro to col or by law — in or der for mar tial law to ment to be sent over to help pro tect my prop-be declared in Tulsa. Accordingly, after de- erty and they said they couldn’t come, theytraining at the Frisco and Santa Fe station, Ad- wouldn’t let them.190jutant General Barrett led a detachment ofsoldiers to the courthouse, where an unsuc- Oliphant’s hopes were raised, however, whencessful attempt was made to contact Sheriff he observed the arrival of the State Troops, fig-McCullough. Barrett then went to city hall, uring that they might be able to save the homeswhere, after conferring with city officials, he along North Detroit. “I sent for them,” he testi-contacted Governor Robertson in Oklahoma fied, I sent for the militia to come, send over fif-City and asked to be granted the authority to teen or twenty of them, that is all I wanted.\" But,proclaim martial law in Tulsa County. Other instead, at around 10:15 a.m. or 10:30 a.m., adetachments of State Troops, meanwhile, ap- party of three or four white men, probablypear to have begun taking charge of black so-called ‘Special Deputies,\" each wearingTulsans who were being held by armed white badges arrived, and then set fire to one of thecivilians.187 However, another account of the very homes that Oliphant had been trying to pro-riot, published a decade later, alleges that upon tect. By the time the State Troops arrived in thetheir arrival in Tulsa, the State Troops wasted neighborhood later that morning, it was too late.valuable minutes by taking time to prepare and Most of the homes were already on fire.191eat breakfast.188 One of the few that was not belonged to Dr. As it turned out, while the State Troops were Robert Bridgewater and his wife, Mattie, at 507occupied downtown, not far away, some of the N. Detroit. Returning to his home — after beingfin est Af ri can Amer i can homes in the city were held at Convention Hall — in order to retrievestill standing. Located along North Detroit Av- his med i cine cases, Dr. Bridgewater later wrote,enue, near Easton, they included the homes ofsome of Tulsa’s most prominent black citi- On reaching the house, I saw my pianozens, among them the residences of Tulsa Star and all of my elegant furniture piled in theeditor A.J. Smitherman, Booker T.Washing- street. My safe had been broken open, all ofton High School principal Ellis W. Woods, and the money stolen, also my silverware, cutbusinessman Thomas R. Gently and his wife, glass, all of the family clothes, and every-Lottie.189 thing of value had been removed, even my family Bible. My electric light fixtures For several hours that morning, John A. were broken, all of the window lights andOliphant a white attorney who lived nearby, glass in the doors were broken, the disheshad been tele phon ing po lice head quar ters in an that were not stolen were broken, the floorseffort to save these homes, that had been looted were covered (literally speaking) withbut not burned. Oliphant believed that a hand- glass, even the phone was torn from theful of officers, if sent over immediately, could wall.192see to it that the homes were spared. As he laterrecounted in sworn testimony: The Bridgewaters, as they well knew, were among the fortunate few. Most black Tulsans Q. Judge, when you phoned the police no longer had homes anymore. station what reply did you get? By the time that marital law was declared in A. He said, somebody in there, I Tulsa County at 11:29 a.m. on June 1, the race thought I knew the voice but I am not cer- riot had nearly run its course. Scattered bands of tain, he said, I will do the best I can for white ri ot ers, some of whom had been awake for you.\" I told him who I was, I wanted some more than twenty-four hours straight, continued policemen, I says, “If you will send me ten to loot and burn, but most had already gone 84

As the riot wore on, African-Americanfamilies frequently became separated,as black men were often the first to beled away at gunpoint. For many blackTulsans, it was hours—and, in somecases, much longer—before theylearned the fate of their loved ones (De-partment of Special Collections,McFarlin Li brary, Uni ver sity of Tulsa).home. Along the northern and eastern edges of fenders had apparently held off the whites whoblack Tulsa, where homes were mixed in with were gathered along the railroad embankment.stretches of farmland, it had become difficult When a second group of whites, armed withfor the rioters to distinguish the homes of Afri- high-powered rifles, arrived on the scene, thecan Americans from those of their white African Americans were soon overrun.194neighbors. The home that riot survivor NellHamilton shared with her mother out near the Most of the city’s black population, mean-Section Line was, perhaps, spared for just that while, was be ing held un der armed guard. Manyreason.193 families had been sent, at first, to Convention Hall, but as it filled to capacity, black Tulsans A final skirmish appears to have occurred a were taken to the baseball park and to the fair-little after Noon, when the remaining members grounds. As the day wore on, hundreds wouldof the white mob exchanged fire with a group soon join them. As the men, women, and chil-of African Americans not far from where the dren who had fled to the countryside, or hadSanta Fe railroad tracks cut across the Section taken ref uge at Golden Gate Park, be gan to wan-Line, just off of Peoria Avenue. The black de- der back toward town, they too, were taken intoFrom their po si tions along Standpipe and Sun set Hills, mem bers of the Tulsa-based units of theOklahoma Na tional Guard also tookblack Tulsans into “protective custody.” And as the local guardsmen began mak ing for ays into the African-American district, theyac tively took black pris on ers (Cour tesy Oklahoma His tor i cal So ci ety). 85

On the morn ing of June 1, most black Tulsans who were taken into cus tody were brought to Con vention Hall, on Brady Street. But asthe day wore on, and more and more African Americans were placed under arrest, new internment centers had to be established(Cour tesy Oklahoma His tor i cal So ci ety).custody. While the white authorities would Additional detachments of State Troops fromlater argue, and not without some validity, that other Oklahoma cities and towns arrived inthis was a protective measure designed to save Tulsa through out June 1, and with their help, theblack lives, other reasons including a lingering streets were eventually cleared. All businesseswhite fear of a “Negro uprising” undoubtedly were ordered to close by 6:00 p.m. One hourplayed a role in their rationale. In any event, later, only members of the military or civil au-following the destruction of their homes and thorities, physicians, or relief workers were al-businesses on May 31 and June 1, black Tulsa lowed on the streets. It was later claimed that bynow found itself, for all prac ti cal pur poses, un- 8:00 p.m. on the evening of June 1, order hadder arrest.195 beenrestored.197 The Tulsa race riot was over. Following the declaration of martial law, the Doctors, relief workers, and members of theState Troops began to move into what little re- military and civil authorities were not, how-mained of Tulsa’s African American neighbor- ever, the only ones who were active in Tulsa onhoods, disarming whites and sending them Wednesday evening, June 1, 1921. As Walteraway from the district. After the riot, a number White later reported:of black Tulsans, strongly condemned, in nouncertain terms, the actions of both the Tulsa O.T. Johnson, commandant of the TulsaPolice Department and the local National Citadel of the Salvation Army, stated thatGuard units during the conflict. However, the on Wednesday and Thursday the SalvationState Troops were largely praised. “Everyone Army fed thirty-seven Negroes employedwith whom I met was loud in praise of the State as grave diggers and twenty on Friday andTroops who so gallantly came to the rescue of Saturday. During the first two days thesestricken Tulsa,” wrote Mary Parrish, “They men dug 120 graves in each of which a deadused no partiality in quieting the disorder. It is Negro was buried. No coffins were used.the general belief that if they had reached the The bodies were dumped into the holes andscene sooner, many lives and valuable prop- covered over with dirt.198erty would have been saved.”196 86

Scene in front of Convention Hall asAfrican Americans are being incar-cerated on June 1 (Cour tesy De part-ment of Special Collections,McFarlin Library, University ofTulsa). Other written evidence, including funeral What they found was a blackened landscapehome records that had lain unseen for more of vacant lots and empty streets, charred tim-than seventy-five years, would later confirm bers and melted metal, ashes and brokenthat African Americanriotvictimswereburied dreams. Where the African American commer-in unmarked graves at Oaklawn Cemetery.199 cial district once stood was now a ghost town ofBut oral sources would also point to additional crumbling brick storefronts and the burned-outunmarked burial sites for riot victims in Tulsa bulks of automobiles. Gone was the DreamlandCounty, including Newblock Park, along the and the Dixie, gone was the Tulsa Star and theSand Springs road, and the historic Booker T. black public library, gone was the Liberty CafeWashington Cemetery, located some twelve and Elliott & Hooker’s clothing store, H.L.miles southeast of the city.200 Byars’ clean ers and Mabel Lit tle’s beauty sa lon. Gone were literal lifetimes of sweat and hard Conducted, no doubt, under trying circum- work, and hard-won rungs on the ladder of thestances, the burial of Tulsa’s African Ameri- American Dream.can riot dead would nevertheless bear little incommon with the interment of white victims. Gone, too, were hun dreds of homes, and moreLargely buried by strangers, there would be no than a half-dozen African American churches,headstones or graveside services for most of all torched by the white invaders. Nearlyblack Tulsa’s riot dead. Nor would familymembers be present at the burials, as most of As black Tulsans won their release from the various internmentthem were still being held under armed guard cen ters, and re turned to Green wood, most dis cov ered that theyat the various detention centers. It appears that no lon ger had homes any more (Cour tesy De part ment of Spe cialin some cases, not only did some black Tulsa Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa).families not learn how their loved ones died,but not even where they were buried. In the week following the riot, nearly all ofTulsa’s African American citizenry had man-aged to win their freedom, by one way or an-other, from the internment centers. Largelyhomeless, and in many cases now penniless,they made their way back to Greenwood.However, Greenwood was gone. 87

Stone and brick walls were all that were left of most of the at gunpoint, toward the various internment cen-homes in the Greenwood section (Courtesy Oklahoma His- ters.201 Some would soon find a new outlet fortoricalSociety). their racial views in the hooded order that was about to sweep across the white community.ten-thousand Tulsans, practically the entireblack community, was now homeless. Other white Tulsans were horrified by what had taken place. Immediately following the riot, Across the tracks and across town, in Clara Kimble, a white teacher at Central HighTulsa’s white neighborhoods, no homes had School opened up her home to her black coun-been looted and no churches had been burned. terparts at Booker T. Washington High School,From the outside, life looked much the same as as did other white families.202 Others donatedit had been prior to the riot, but even here, be- food, cloth ing, money, and other forms of as sis-neath the surface, there was little normalcy. tance. For many whites, the riot was a horror never to be forgotten, a mark of shame upon the In one way or another, white Tulsans had city that would endure forevermore.been stunned by what had happened in theircity. More than a few whites, including those However, for black Tulsans, the trials andwhose homes now featured stolen goods, had tribulations had only just begun. Six days afterundeniably, taken great joy in what had oc- the riot, on June 7, the Tulsa City Commissioncurred, particularly the destruction of Green- passed a fire ordinance designed to prevent thewood. Some whites had even applauded as rebuilding of the African American commercialblack families had been led through the streets, district where it had formerly stood, while the so-called Reconstruction Commission, an orga- nization of white business and political leaders, had been fuming away offers of outside aid . In the end, black Tulsans did rebuild their commu- nity, and the fire ordinance was de clared un con- stitutional by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Yet, the damage had been done, and the tone of the official local response to the disaster had al- ready been set. Despite the Herculean efforts of the American Red Cross, thousands of black Tulsans were forced to spend the winter ofMany African Americans wereforced to spend the winter afterthe riot in tents (CourtesyOklahomaHistoricalSociety). 88

Iron bed frames were all that remained of many residences in North Tulsa (Courtesy Oklahoma HistoricalSociety).1921-22 living in tents. Others simply left. of armed Negroes, which precipitated and wasThey had had enough of Tulsa, Oklahoma. the direct cause of the entire affair.”205 For some, staying was not an option. It soon A few other court cases, largely involvingbecame clear, both in the grand jury that had claims against the city and various insurancebeen im pan eled to look into the riot, and in var- com pa nies, lin gered on for a num ber of years af-ious other legal actions that, by and large, lan- terward. In the end, while a handful of Africanguished in the courts, that African Americans Americans were charged with riot-related of-would be blamed for causing the riot. No- fenses, no white Tulsan was ever sent to prisonwhere, per haps, was this stated more force fully for the murders and burnings of May 31, andthan in the June 25, final report of the grand June 1, 1921. In the 1920s Oklahoma court-jury, which stated: rooms and halls of government, there would be no day of reckoningforeithertheperpetratorsor We find that the recent race riot was the the victims of the Tulsa race riot. Now, some direct result of an effort on the part of a cer- seventy-nine years later, the aged riot survivors tain group of colored men who ap peared at can only wonder if, indeed, that day will ever the courthouse on the night of May 31, come. 1921, for the purpose of protecting one Dick Rowland then and now in the cus- Com mem o ra tion of the riot con ducted by Ben Hooks (Cour tesy tody of the Sheriff of Tulsa Country for an Green wood Cul tural Cen ter). alleged assault upon a young white woman. We have not been able to find any evidence either from white or colored citi- zens that any organized attempt was made or planned to take from the Sheriff’s cus- tody any prisoner; the crowd assembled about the courthouse being purely specta- tors and curiosity seekers resulting from rumors circulated about the city. “There was no mob spirit among the whites,no talk of lynching and no arms,\" the reportadded, “The assembly was quiet until the arrival 89

Endnotes 1 A number of general histories of Tulsa have been written over the years, the most recent being Danney Goble,Tulsa!: Biography of the American City (Tulsa: Council Oaks Books, 1997). In addition, also see: William Butler,Tulsa 75: A History of Tulsa (Tulsa: Metropolitan Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, 1974); Angie Debo, Tulsa: FromCreek Town to Oil Cap i tal (Nor man: Uni ver sity of Oklahoma Press, 1943); Clar ence B. Douglas,The His tory of Tulsa,Oklahoma: A City With a Personality (3 vols.; Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1921); Nina Dunn, Tulsa’sMagic Roots (Tulsa: Oklahoma Book Publishing Company, 1979); James Monroe Hall, The Beginning of Tulsa(Tulsa: Scott-Rice Company, 1928); and Courtney Ann Vaughn-Roberson and Glen Vaughn-Roberson, City in theOsage Hills: Tulsa, Oklahoma (Boulder: Pruett Publishing Company, 1984). 2John D. Porter, comp., Tulsa County Handbook, 1920 (Tulsa: Banknote Printing Company, 1920). Dr. Fred S.Clinton, “Interesting Tulsa History,” a 1918 pamphlet, a copy of which is located in the Tulsa History ver ti cal files inthe library of the Oklahoma Historical Society. [Federal Writers’ Project], Tulsa: A Guide to the Oil Capital (Tulsa:Mid-West Printing Company, 1938), pp. 23-25, 32, 50, 54. Tulsa City Directory, 1921 (Tulsa: Polk-HoffhineDirectory Company, 1921). Vaughn-Roberson and Vaughn-Roberson, City in the Osage Hills, p. 199. On the old Tulsa city cemetery, which was located near what is now the intersection of Second Street and FriscoAv e nue, see: Jim Downing, “Bull dozers Dis turb Pi o neers’ Fi nal Rest,”Tulsa World, Feb ru ary 17, 1970, pp. 113, 613;Mrs. J.O. Misch, “Last Resting Places Not Al ways Fi nal” and other un dated clip pings lo cated in the Tulsa Cemeteriessub ject files at the Tulsa His tor i cal So ci ety; and, in ter view with S.R. Lewis, In dian PioneerHistoryCollection,FederalWriters’ Project, vol. CVI, pp. 351-352, Oklahoma Historical Society. 3 Tulsa City Directory, 1921. Clinton, “Interesting Tulsa History”. Porter, Tulsa County Handbook, 1920. Goble,Tulsa! pp. 78-111. 4While a complete architectural history of Tulsa as not yet been written, the homes of the oil barons have been thesubject of careful study. See: Marilyn Inhofe, Kathleen Reeves, and Sandy Jones, Footsteps Through Tulsa (Tulsa:Liberty Press, 1984); and, especially, John Brooks Walton, One Hundred Historic Tulsa Homes (Tulsa: HCEPublications, 2000). 5On the history of Greenwood, see: Eddie Faye Gates, They Came Searching: How Blacks Sought the PromisedLand in Tulsa (Austin: Eakin Press, 1997); Hannibal B. Johnson, Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance inGreenwood’s Historic Greenwood District (Austin: Eakin Press, 1997); Henry C. Whitlow, Jr., “A History of theGreen wood Era in Tulsa”, a pa per pre sented to the Tulsa His tor i cal So ci ety, March 29, 1973; Fran cis Dominic Burke,“A Sur vey of the Ne gro Com mu nity of Tulsa, Oklahoma” (M.A. the sis, Uni ver sity of Oklahoma,1936); and, [Na tionalUrban League], A Study of the Social and Economic Condition of the Negro Population of Tulsa, Oklahoma(Washington, D.C.: National Urban League, 1945). 6The standard work on the history of African Americans in Oklahoma is Jimmie Lewis Franklin, Journey TowardHope: A History of Blacks in Oklahoma (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982). 7On B.C. Franklin, see: John Hope Franklin and John Whittington Franklin, eds., My Life and An Era: TheAutobiography of Buck Colbert Franklin (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997). The John HopeFrank lin quote is from his Fore word to Scott Ellsworth, Death in a Prom ised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921(Ba tonRouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), p. xv. 8On the transfer of entrepreneurial experience from the all black towns to Greenwood, credit is due to ProfessorD.F.G. Williams, an urbanist at Washington University in St. Louis. Professor Williams is currently preparing ascholarly article about Tulsa’s African American community at the time of the riot, and was kind enough to share anearly version of this work, titled “Economic Dualism, Institutional Failure, and Racial Violence in a Resource BoomTown: A Reexamination of the Tulsa Riot of 1921.” 9Mary E. Jones Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster (rpt; Tulsa: Out on a Limb Pub lishing, 1998), pp. 11, 17. TulsaCity Directory, 1921. Sanborn Fire insurance Maps, Tulsa Historical Society. “Tulsa’s Industrial and CommercialDistrict,” 1921 map published by the Dean-Brumfield Com pany, Tulsa.DailyOklahoman, June 2, 1921. Oral historyinterview with Nell Hamilton Hampton, Tulsa, September 16, 1998. Oral history interview with Ed ward L. Goodwin,Sr., Tulsa, November 21, 1976, by Ruth Sigler Avery in Fear: The Fifth Horseman — A Documentary of the 1921Tulsa Race Riot, unpublished manuscript. 10Mabel B. Lit tle, “A His tory of the Blacks of North Tulsa and My Life”, type script, dated May 24, 1971. Tulsa Star,April 11, 1914. Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, June 10, 1921. Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, pp. 115-126.Franklin and Franklin, My Life and An Era, p. 193. Tulsa City Directory, 1921. Oral history interviews with: RobertFairchild, Tulsa, June 8, 1978; V.H. Hodge, Tulsa, June 12, 1978; W.D.Wil liams, Tulsa, June 7, 197 8; B.E. Caruthers,Tulsa, July 21, 1978; Elwood Lett, Tulsa, May 28, 1998; and Otis Clark, Tulsa, June 4, 1999. 11[State Arts Council of Oklahoma], “A Century of African-American Experience — Greenwood: From Ruins toRenaissance”,exhibitionbrochure.OralhistoryinterviewswithW.D.Williams,Tulsa,by: Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: 90